Cookbook
Cookbooks are recipes with a solution to howto questions or functionality of Zotonic.
For more generic guides, check the User Guide and the Developer Guide.
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45 items
Activate/deactivate modules
Rescuing a dysfunctional site from the Zotonic shell.
Admin template specific things
Common markup in admin templates.
Automatically add new users to a user group
Why When you create a person, you usually need to add it to a user group as well. You may want to automate this, in particular if you need to differentiate the user group based on the person’s category.
Create a custom action
Create a custom controller
Zotonic comes with a large collection controllers that cover many use cases, so you’ll probably have to resort to custom controllers less often than you may be used to from other web frameworks. Still, the time may come…
Create a custom filter
Create custom template filters to change the way variables are rendered in your templates. By following some simple rules, Zotonic will automatically find the filter for you:
Create a custom model
In this chapter we will look at how to implement a model around the The Open Movie Database (OMDB) API.
Create a custom tag
Custom tags, internally called scomps , are module-defined tags, which are used when the logic is too complex to be executed in templates.
Creating a custom widget on the edit page
Why For an imaginary webshop edit page, we want to add 2 more data fields: the affiliate URL and a note about free shipping.
Customizing the layout of the admin edit page
Why After having created a custom widget (see Creating a custom widget on the edit page), we want to hide widgets that we don’t need.
Customizing the sign up and sign in form
You want to change parts of the form, or change its appearance.
Customizing the style of an admin page
How to make style customizations to admin pages.
Custom pivots
Search can only sort and filter on resources that actually have a database column. Zotonic’s resources are stored in a serialized form. This allows you to very easily add any property to any resource but you cannot sort…
Custom search
Implement a custom search by observing the search_query notification in your module. Imagine you want to search cookies in your database that either have chocolate or do not:
Debugging db (query) issues
Techniques for finding root cause when queries are involved.
Displaying a site map
For the benefit of search engines and fans of tables of contents you can easily provide a site map.
Dynamic select options using a wired template
Why Suppose you want to wire a change event for a select box to update a another select box, i.e. you want to wire the action to use the selected value when rendering the template.
Enabling Growl Notifications
Using growl outside admin requires some magic to make it work.
Erlang tab completion
Get quicker access to Zotonic code on the shell.
Execute tasks asynchronously using the task queue
The Zotonic task queue lets applications perform tasks asynchronously.
Exometer metrics
Zotonic comes with a system for collecting and exporting metrics (such as how much memory is used, how many database requests were made, etc.) called Exometer. This cookbook details how to make use of that system to…
Filter and convert characters
Applying Erlang Binary syntax to get fast character manipulation.
How to add a custom page block
Zotonic comes with a number of standard page blocks: Header, Text and Embed page. Additional page blocks are provided by modules, for example mod_survey uses page blocks extensively for composing surveys. Page blocks…
How to customise error pages
Specific error pages Zotonic’s controller_http_error first tries to find an error page template that is specific for the HTTP status code, named templates/error. status_code .tpl . So, to override the 404 template
Icons in templates
Zotonic provides a couple of ways to show icons in templates:
Implementing a simple contact form
This tutorial teaches you to create a form, validate it, submit it over Ajax and e-mail the results back to you.
Just enough Erlang/OTP and rebar, part 1
Zotonic source code have you scratching your head? Learn Rebar first.
Just enough Erlang/OTP and rebar, part 2
Building a gen_server to front the library and generating documentation.
Just enough Erlang shell
An indispensible tool for both learning and programming Erlang.
Just enough Postgres
Understand the primary data-store of Zotonic.
Just Enough Regular Expressions (in Erlang)
Learn how to manipulate string data with the re module.
Logging to Logstash
Logstash is often used for log centralization and analysis. This cookbook describes how to set up Zotonic for logging to Logstash over UDP. As mentioned in the Logging chapter, Zotonic uses Logger.
Managing redirection after login and signup
Configure mod_signup to redirect to something other than a member’s home page.
Overriding Zotonic
This chapter describes how to override the templates, styling and logic provided by Zotonic.
Page-specific dynamic backgrounds
Use edges ( page connections ) to associate backgrounds with pages.
Pivot Templates
Search uses database indices on special pivot columns and full text fields.
Reset a user’s password
Emergency password reset when you can’t get into the admin interface.
Restore/upgrade content db from backup
Contributed by: Scott Finnie
Retrieving the category of a page
Getting the category from a URL is somewhat involved, but not impossible. This is an example of what you can do with filters.
Security, templates and XSS prevention
Ensuring that you don't fall victim to cross site scripting and other injection attacks takes vigilance, eye for details and especially some good naming habits.
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