The Neos.Folder package

A Content Repository based folder system

This package implements a strictly hierarchical folder system based on the Neos Content Repository (CR).

Neos/Flow Content Repository

If you are familiar with the Neos/Flow Content Repository you may skip this section.

The Neos/Flow Content Repository (CR) is an abstraction layer to whatsoever is implemented as permanent storage (usually a database system). This brief introduction does not claim completeness. It covers the aspects required for the understanding of the CR based Neos.Folder system.

When you set up the first site in Neos, the CR contains a hierarchical structure of entries starting with the path /sites.

The CR is capable of holding many such hierarchical structures. Some examples:

• /sites defined in class SiteService from package Neos.Neos
• /assets defined in class MetaDataRepository from package Neos.MetaData.ContentRepositoryAdapter
• /taxonomies defined in file Settings.yaml from package Sitegeist.Taxonomy

Nodes

The basic unit in the CR is a Node. Each Node is identified by

• path example: /var/www/html - you know this from directory trees, or
• identifier example: c255046d-4215-456f-b2f9-017db059cf55

But that's not all. The CR can hold the same Node in different variants to keep different properties for different languages and/or countries. In the CR the different variants are called dimensions.

As of this a Node is unique by path or identifier AND dimensions.

Dimensions

Dimensions are defined in file Settings.yaml in Neos.ContentRepository.contentDimensions section (see for example the site package Neos.Demo). In the settings file there are defined constraints as not all combinations of the defined dimensions (language and country) do make sense. You can define any dimension in your project's Configuration/Settings.yaml file in addition to the standard dimenions. For a details have a look at the NEOS Content Dimensions documentation.

Properties

Any Node in the CR can hold properties. One Node in the CR can hold variants for any combination of dimensions and hence different property key => value pairs (properties).

Neos.Folder system

Dimensions

The Neos.Folder system follows the CR in sense of different variants by dimensions. For root folders (like /assets in the example above) a folder may be added without dimensions.

Properties

Default properties

The Neos.Folder package offers a strictly hierarchical system of folders. It extends the CR by three default properties:

• folder title
• folder title path
• associations

Folder title and folder title path

If you want to utilize Neos.Folder displaying the path name (or parts of it, a path segment or CR Node name) of the folder, it is not possible to stick to the CR's path names, as a CR path name consists of lower case characters, numbers and slashes. No upper case, no spaces and, what's most important, no diacritics (Umlaut).

Hence, a natural language string is kept as folder title and constructed from all titles of the parent folders a folder title path.

Associations

To keep information of associated Neos objects the associations property array is utilized. A reference is stored as a Node's identifier. The API offers a method to associate or dissociate an object to a folder following the syntax of setting and clearing a symbolic link:

• setting a symbolic link: ln -s <token> <target>
• removing it: rm <target>

Other properties

The API contains methods for setting, clearing and retrieving properties. The Neos.Folder property API filters the default properties.

Adoption

Imagine a folder system where your application sets up a base folder (like /your-application/folder/). Next the backend user(s) extend this folder system with sub folders (and sub sub folders...). This ends up in a folder tree. The title of each folder is specific for the user's session dimensions (see Folder title and folder title path).

If the site is set up for multi dimensions, the backend user can copy the whole site to some new dimensions by change of dimension in the backend. The whole site tree is copied to the new dimensions. The same applies to the Neos.Folder system. After the adoption of the folder tree by the new dimension the same folder tree is available for the new dimensions. If the change of dimensions goes along with a language switch, the backend may translate and set the titles of the folders.

Configuration

Some default parameters are defined in the package's file Settings.yaml:

Neos:
  Folder:
    defaults:
      nodeType: 'Neos.Folder:Folder'
      titlePropertyKey: 'title'
      titlePathPropertyKey: 'titlePath'
      associationsPropertyKey: 'associations'
      adoptOnEmpty: true

The first four properties (nodeType, titlePropertyKey, titlePathPropertyKey and associationsPropertyKey) need no further explanation.

The propertiy adoptOnEmpty controls the behaviour of the service API. This property determines the behaviour of the get service, if there is no folder (tree) available for the (possibly new) session dimensions. On true the folder tree is adopted from the default dimensions.

The node type Neos.Folder:Folder is defined in the package's file NodeTypes.Folder.yaml:

'Neos.Folder:Folder':
  label: 'Neos Folder'
  superTypes:
    'Neos.Neos:Node': TRUE
  constraints:
    nodeTypes:
      '*': FALSE
  properties:
    title:
      type: string
    titlePath:
      type: string
    associations:
      type: references

Command line interface and API

The Command line flow interface provides commands to add, set title, remove, adopt, move, set or clear property, associate folders and show all root folder. Commands to list, export and import folder trees are also available. For more information either use ./flow help folder command or see Flow commands documentation.

The Neos.Folder package has two APIs:

• PHP API
• Web Service API.

For more information follow one of the links above.

Requirements

• PHP 8.x
• Neos/Flow 8.x