Idea for an Extension: Options Page Creator

[Medianomaly]

I've seen a couple of ideas/proposals for extensions on the forum lately, and I have one of my own that I've been wanting to do for a while, so I just thought I'd throw this out there.

I'd love to be able to create an "options" page for my site. The back-end interface would function exactly like settings -- instead of a set of parent/child records, it would simply display a single page of configurable settings that are "global" to the site. For example, you may have a company address, phone number, single link, or block of content that needs to be displayed in multiple locations (but may be formatted differently per location). It would be great to give a client access to a single place to edit this without having to dig through multiple content elements, or giving them access to FE modules.

The difference between this and the settings module is records would probably be stored in the database instead of the global configuration file. Then they could be dropped into templates either via PHP code (from a global array) or optionally by dynamically creating an insert-tag, if chosen as an option.

We pretty much use Contao for every site now, whether or not a client is paying for content management, because it makes it so much easier for us to develop and maintain internally anyway, and also if they want to add CMS controls later it's an easy transition. We also have sites done in Contao where the client can only edit a catalog or a news archive. In each case it would be very convenient and user friendly to offer these clients access to an "options" page to manage simple site-wide stuff.

I've been meaning to try and reverse-engineer the settings module to figure out how to do this. But I was thinking this would also make a kick-ass extension as well, where you'd define an options page, define form widgets, decide whether to create an insert-tag for each, and then define access through user groups. But developing such an extension would be way over my head.

Anyway, hoping someone else thinks this is a good idea, too.

Thanks!

[FloB]

You might want to have a look at the catalog extension.

[thyon]

A great place would be to extend the ROOT page type to show these fields. Then they will only appear on a ROOT and you can then give your client access to the fields for that root. That would be a simple "site root" point to attach the variables. Settings could span multiple roots, so that's not a good idea. This is similar to the date format that is defined only in a Site ROOT, but not for a page.

[Ben_360fusion]

I have thought about a similar extension, currently we have created a system with the catalog module with all the data fields necessary. Then we place template in places like the footer, header and contact us page, that way it can be edited easily buy a site admin. we also use the be_module extension.

However it would be nice to be able to set email addresses here for forms and main administrator. This is where a separate module would come in great.

Some insert tags for this would make it very easy to add this information to certain parts of the website.

[Ben]

Ben, what's the "be_module extension"? I can't find it in the repository.

[Ben_360fusion]

Hi Ben,

Sorry, have just got used to refering to it as that with my designer.

The name is: custom_be_modules

Here is a link: http://www.contao.org/extension-list...e_modules.html

Ben

[Ben]

Oh, right - I know that one. Thanks for clarifying though, Ben.