Widgets are re-usable pieces of dynamic content that can be created by users with no knowledge of HTML or Velocity. Widget content is created by utilizing a Widget Content Type which provides all of the coding and parameters for new widget creation.
Why use Widgets?
Widgets allow any user to create their own customized dynamic listing of content, without any training in Velocity and/or HTML. Users instead need only select a pre-built widget and provide a few simple parameters. Since all the programming is done once by a webmaster or dotCMS Content Architect, for content creators adding a new widget becomes as easy as filling out a few form fields to describe the desired output of the dynamic listing.
Some widget content types are built into dotCMS, but any trained dotCMS Content Architect can create their own. These are the basic steps to creating new customized widgets:
- Webmaster or Content Architect: Create a widget Content Type, including the custom parameters that Content Contributors will use to modify the content pull.
- Content Contributor: Create a widget (dynamic pull), by creating a new piece of content of the widget Content Type created in step 1.
After one or more widgets are created, these powerful dynamic pulls can be re-used, as needed, throughout a dotCMS website.
The following documentation sections describe each of these steps in detail.
