How to re-use assets provided by the default view.

This is a community-contributed tutorial. This tutorial is over a year old and may not apply to your version of Concrete CMS.
Mar 7, 2016

Edited

Hold on with this tutorial for a bit. I found some issues on updated concrete5 installs. I'll investigate further asap. When using this Trick, the assets will be searched in updates/concrete5version/packages...

Original:

Problem:

Sometimes you would like to re-use those assets you created for your normal view. And would only make small changes on your template. But the original assets are no longer auto-loaded. Only the assets in your template map are. Of course you could create a copy, or include them, but that has a number of disadvantages (speed, double loading, upgrades)

Situation:

  • custom block with auto-loaded assets in myblock/css and myblock/js:
    • myblock/css/myblock.css
    • myblock/js/myblock.js
  • a template in /templates/myblock/myblocktemplate:
    • view.php
    • view.css
    • view.js

Goals:

  • re-use and extend on the assets loaded by the normal view template.
  • use concrete5's asset system so files don't get loaded twice (no @import or addheader)

Trick:

  • use the same asset handle as the autoloader does. You might expect them to be something like: 'blocks/myblock', but they have the full name of the asset -> 'blocks/myblock/myblock.js'

block controller:

    public function on_start()
    {
        $al = \Concrete\Core\Asset\AssetList::getInstance();
        $al->register('css', 'blocks/myblock/myblock.css','../packages/myblock/blocks/myblock/css/image_plus.css');
        $al->register('javascript', 'blocks/myblock/myblock.js', '../packages/myblock/blocks/myblock/js/myblock.js');
        $al->registerGroup('blocks/myblock', array(
            array('css', 'blocks/myblock/myblock.css'),
            array('javascript', 'blocks/myblock/myblock.js')
        ));
    }

and:

    public function registerViewAssets($outputContent = '')
    {
        $this->requireAsset('blocks/myblock');
    }

Now, these original assets are also loaded when you apply a myblocktemplate on your block. In templates/myblock/myblocktemplate you can override or extend them.

Recent Tutorials
Customize locale icons
Oct 29, 2024
By myq.

How to customize locale (language region) flags

Concrete CMS Caching Guide
Oct 16, 2024

An overview of types of caching in Concrete and considerations when using them.

Redirect all requests to HTTPS
Oct 9, 2024
By myq.

How to follow best practices for a secure web

Upgrade Concrete versions 9.3.1 and 9.3.2
Sep 10, 2024
By myq.

How to get past a bug in versions 9.3.1 and 9.3.2 that prevents upgrading the Concrete core through the Dashboard

How to use Composer with Marketplace extensions
Aug 22, 2024

Composer can be used to manage third-party extensions from the marketplace

Controlling Google Tag Manager Tags Based on Concrete CMS Edit Toolbar Visibility
Aug 13, 2024

This document provides a step-by-step guide on how to control the firing of Google Tag Manager (GTM) tags based on the visibility of the Concrete CMS edit toolbar. It explains how to create a custom JavaScript variable in GTM to detect whether the edit toolbar is present on a page and how to set up a trigger that ensures GTM tags only fire when the toolbar is not visible. This setup is particularly useful for developers and marketers who want to ensure that tracking and analytics tags are not activated during content editing sessions, thereby preserving the accuracy of data collected.

Improvements?

Let us know by posting here.