How to manage articles in Contao

Articles are containers for content elements. Grouping content elements that belong together makes it easy to move, publish, copy, edit or export them all at once instead of one by one. Each article is associated with a particular page and layout section and therefore has a fixed position in the site structure and on the website. Contao optionally shows only the article teaser with a Read more link.

Content elements ¶

Content elements are an easy and intuitive way to create content. Instead of just using a Rich Text Editor, Contao provides a separate element for each type of content like texts, lists, tables, hyperlinks, images or downloads. Here is an overview of the Contao core content elements:

Name	CSS class	Description
Headline	ce_headline	Generates a headline (h1 - h6).
Text	ce_text	Generates a rich text that can be formatted using TinyMCE.
HTML	-	Allows you to add custom HTML code.
List	ce_list	Generates an ordered or unordered list.
Table	ce_table	Generates an optionally sortable table.
Accordion	ce_accordion	Generates a MooTools accordion pane.
Code	ce_code	Highlights code snippets and prints them to the screen.
Hyperlink	ce_hyperlink	Generates a link to another website.
Top link	ce_toplink	Generates a link to jump to the top of the page.
Image	ce_image	Generates a stand-alone image.
Gallery	ce_gallery	Generates a lightbox image gallery.
Download	ce_download	Generates a link to download a file.
Downloads	ce_downloads	Generates multiple links to download files.
Article	-	Includes another article.
Content element	(parent class)	Includes another content element.
Form	ce_form	Includes a form.
Module	(parent class)	Includes a front end module.
Article teaser	ce_teaser	Displays the teaser text of an article.
Comments	ce_comments	Adds a comment form to an article.

Access control ¶

Each content element can be protected so only guests or members of a particular group can see it on the website.

Protected content element

Flash content ¶

Flash content is a special type of content which is not shown in an article on the website but loaded into a dynamic Flash movie using loadVars(). To allow communitcation between Contao and Flash, you have to add the following function to the root frame of your movie:

TextField.prototype._loadArticle = function(flashID) {
    tf = this;

    // Enable HTML mode and remove content
    tf.html = true;
    tf.htmlText = "";

    // Instantiate a new LoadVars object
    lv = new LoadVars();
    lv["flashID"] = flashID;
    lv.sendAndLoad(URL + "flash.php", lv, "POST");

    lv.onLoad = function(success) {
        if (success) {
            tf.htmlText = lv["content"];
        }
    }
}

// Load the Flash content "myArticle" into the text field "myTextBox"
myTextBox._loadArticle("myArticle");

Importing a style sheet

The following ActionScript allows you to import a style sheet to format a dynamic text field:

TextField.prototype._addCSS = function(style_sheet) {
    tf= this;
    tf.styleSheet = null;

    // Instantiate a new StyleSheet object
    st = new TextField.StyleSheet();
    st.load(URL + style_sheet);

    st.onLoad = function(success) {
        if (success) {
            tf.styleSheet = st;
        }
    }
}

// Add the style sheet "basic.css" to the text box "myTextBox"
myTextBox._addCSS("basic.css");

Note that Flash only supports a small subset of HTML tags, so some of your styles might not display correctly.

Contao Open Source CMS

How to manage articles in Contao

Content elements ¶

Access control ¶

Flash content ¶

Importing a style sheet

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