Content Blocks
Content
blocks
are
small
chunks
of
content
that
aren't
generated
by
any
specific
module.
Blocks
are
designed
to
be
embedded
on
other
pages
-
in
a
sidebar,
or
the
footer,
or
at
the
bottom
of
every
blog
post.
You
could,
for
example,
create
a
Content
Block
with
copyright
information,
and
automatically
have
it
added
at
the
bottom
of
every
blog
post.
You create new content blocks using the standard Manifesto interface. Each block has the following properties:
- Title
-
Body
(full
HTML)
- CSS class (applied to container)
- CSS style (applied to container)
-
Background
image
These define the content elements of the block, and offer some additional styling features that may be applied based on the template used to embed the content on your site.
After creating the content, there are a variety of options for indicating where you want the content to appear. You are provided with an interface for selecting the parameters for embedding this content:
- Location (where you want the content to appear)
- Template (the layout template into which your content is flowed)
- Module interactions (the modules permitted to display the content)
You may select more than one template and output location: you could, for example, use the same content in an a "square box with borders" template for the bottom of the home page, and also "tall box with background image" for the sidebar on TemplatePage pages. The same content will appear in each location, avoiding the need to create multiple content boxes just for different areas of your site.
You can even use the Content Blocks module to embed more complicated templates into your site. For example, you could create a custom output template that contains programming logic or a meticulously designed snippet of HTML (e.g. an ad banner), and then use the Content Blocks module to insinuate it onto your site. In such a case, you may only need a title for your block, and can safely ignore the other content properties, since the template contains everything it needs.
If
you
select
the
"Floating"
event
location,
your
content
will
not
appear
anywhere
by
default
--
it
will
only
appear
if
you
manually
insert
a
placeholder
code
like
[#content_block_14#]
into
the
body
field
of
a
page,
or
use
the
floating
event
include
code
directly
in
a
template:
if ($listener = Module::invoke_listener('content_blocks') && $inc = $listener->get_include_file()) {
include $inc;
}