My desire is to print, in the body of a page, a list of pages. The list would include information about the pages such as date published, author etc. Something like the results of doing a search. I was hoping to base the list on a menu design area since the search (and results layouts) page don't seem to be available.
I have created a new type of asset (based on a standard page) for testing. It includes an additional text variable which can be entered on the design screen (at the same time as name and short name). The additional variable seems to be working ok.
Q1) In a design how would you print the additional variable?
Alternatively it was suggested that instead of creating a new type of asset, metadata could be used for some information.
Q2) Can you print metadata information in design areas (say a menu area) other than the metadata type of design area?
I also have a sample design which uses a tag <MySource_PRINT var='href'/> within a constant-button design area. But I cannot find the 'href' variable in the documentation of the constant button or any other design area.
Q3) What is the 'href' variable?
Q4) Are there any other variables for the MySource_PRINT tag?
Q5) Do MySource_PRINT tags have to be inside a design area?
Thanks for your help.
You should do this with the Asset Listing page. You can list all the attributes of an asset, including any metadata within an asset listing, so you don't need to create a new asset type (just create a custom metadata schema).
Though, to answer your questions:
Q1. You can't, without modifying the design assets themselves.
Q2. No. See Q1.
Q3. Its the relative path to the asset being referenced.
Q4. Each design area has different MySource_PRINT variables available.
Q5. No. You can declare a design area in one place and use a MySource_PRINT in another location, as long as you specify an id_name="…" in the MySource_PRINT to identify which design area's details you're printing.
Unfortunately I dont have an Asset Listing page type. The only page type was Standard page.
Nor do I have a search page for that matter.
Have I installed the wrong version?
The asset listing page is available for download from the Matrix website (http://matrix.squiz.net/download). You'll need to install the CMS package first, then the two additional assets (Asset Listing/Redirect).
The Search page is part of the commerical Search package (along with the search manager and other fun things). You can contact sales for pricing on that.
So far so good. Have added asset listing page type and created a page.
I can display the attributes of assets in a list (ie name, short name, date created etc) but have no idea how to print the asset metadata. They are not included in the "Select Keyword" drop down list and I don't know how to refer to them.
Can you point me in the right direction?
Yeah, the metadata keywords are auto-generated, so they don't show up in the keyword list. Essentially, you just use:
%asset_metadata_<metadata field name>% (Case sensitive).
So, if you have a field called "DC.Description", you'd use:
%asset_metadata_DC.Description%
Obviously, your metadata fields shouldn't have spaces in them if you want to use them like this. 