Customizing RadiantCMS
with Extensions

Sean D. Cribbs

RadiantCMS Core Team

What is RadiantCMS?

From the website:

Radiant is a no-fluff, open source content management system designed for small teams.

From the website:

Radiant is a no-fluff, open source content management system designed for small teams.

In other words...

Not these:

Simple Admin Interface

• Pages
• Snippets
• Layouts

Pages

• Multiple parts
• Text filters
• Hierarchical organization

Snippets

• Reusable content
• Mini-templates
• "Includes" or "Partials"

Layouts

• Site wireframe
• Renders page parts & snippets
• HTML, XML, Javascript, CSS, RSS, Atom...

Radius Template Language

• Like XML, TextPattern, JSP
• Conditional includes
• Iteration
• Generation

Behaviors and Caching

• Page-specific plugins
• Automatic 5-minute page cache

Why use Radiant?

• Works for most sites
  • More than a blog engine
  • Less than a portal or "enterprise" CMS
  • The 80% Window™

Why use Radiant?

• Radius is flexible, powerful
  • Most dynamic content problems can be solved
  • Intimately tied to content models
  • Designers can "get it"

Why use Radiant?

• Many available plugins and behaviors
  • Date-based archives
  • Code-highlighting (for the Ruby junkie)
  • Blog-style comments
  • Feed aggregation

Radiant Sites (1/3)

Radiant Sites (2/3)

Radiant Sites (3/3)

"OK, but what about...?"

OK, but what about...?

• Integration with external data services

OK, but what about...?

• Integration with external data services
• Managing data that don't fit the "page/part/snippet/layout" mold

OK, but what about...?

• Integration with external data services
• Managing data that don't fit the "page/part/snippet/layout" mold
• Interacting with the visitor

OK, but what about...?

• Integration with external data services
• Managing data that don't fit the "page/part/snippet/layout" mold
• Interacting with the visitor
• Complex data manipulation, computation, etc.

It is possible

It is possible:
with Radiant 0.6
and Extensions

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions
• Behavior::Base or PageContext tags

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions
• Behavior::Base or PageContext tags
• Radiant::Taggable with mixins for tags

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions
• Behavior::Base or PageContext tags
• Radiant::Taggable with mixins for tags
• Hard to modify admin

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions
• Behavior::Base or PageContext tags
• Radiant::Taggable with mixins for tags
• Hard to modify admin
• Easy to modify admin

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions
• Behavior::Base or PageContext tags
• Radiant::Taggable with mixins for tags
• Hard to modify admin
• Easy to modify admin
• Behavior kludges and workarounds

Radiant 0.5.x vs. 0.6.x

• Behaviors
• Page types
• Rails Plugins
• Radiant extensions
• Behavior::Base or PageContext tags
• Radiant::Taggable with mixins for tags
• Hard to modify admin
• Easy to modify admin
• Behavior kludges and workarounds
• Fully custom models, controllers, and views

So what are extensions?

So what are extensions?

• Vertical slices of an app, like Rails Engines

So what are extensions?

• Vertical slices of an app, like Rails Engines
  • Define models, controllers, views

So what are extensions?

• Vertical slices of an app, like Rails Engines
  • Define models, controllers, views
  • Define custom routes

So what are extensions?

• Vertical slices of an app, like Rails Engines
  • Define models, controllers, views
  • Define custom routes
  • Use migrations

So what are extensions?

• Vertical slices of an app, like Rails Engines
  • Define models, controllers, views
  • Define custom routes
  • Use migrations
  • Full unit, functional, and integration testing, with fixtures

Create an extension

$ script/generate extension foo

Create an extension

$ script/generate extension foo
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/app/controllers
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/app/helpers
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/app/models
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/app/views
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/db/migrate
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/lib/tasks
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/test/functional
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/test/unit
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/README
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/Rakefile
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/foo_extension.rb
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/db/migrate/001_create_foo_extension_schema.rb
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/lib/tasks/foo_extension_tasks.rake
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/test/test_helper.rb
    create  vendor/extensions/foo/test/functional/foo_extension_test.rb

foo_extension.rb

class FooExtension < Radiant::Extension

  version "1.0"
  description "Describe your extension here"
  url "http://foo.com"

  # define_routes do |map|
  #   map.connect 'admin/foo/:action', :controller => 'admin/asset'
  # end
  
  def activate
    # admin.tabs.add "Foo", "/admin/foo", :after => "Layouts", :visibility => [:all]
  end
  
  def deactivate
    # admin.tabs.remove "Foo"
  end
    
end

foo_extension.rb

class FooExtension < Radiant::Extension

  version "1.0"
  description "Describe your extension here"
  url "http://foo.com"

  # define_routes do |map|
  #   map.connect 'admin/foo/:action', :controller => 'admin/asset'
  # end
  
  def activate
    # admin.tabs.add "Foo", "/admin/foo", :after => "Layouts", :visibility => [:all]
  end
  
  def deactivate
    # admin.tabs.remove "Foo"
  end
    
end

Extension "properties"

foo_extension.rb

class FooExtension < Radiant::Extension

  version "1.0"
  description "Describe your extension here"
  url "http://foo.com"

  # define_routes do |map|
  #   map.connect 'admin/foo/:action', :controller => 'admin/asset'
  # end
  def activate
    # admin.tabs.add "Foo", "/admin/foo", :after => "Layouts", :visibility => [:all]
  end
  
  def deactivate
    # admin.tabs.remove "Foo"
  end
    
end

Custom routes - just like routes.rb

foo_extension.rb

class FooExtension < Radiant::Extension

  version "1.0"
  description "Describe your extension here"
  url "http://foo.com"

  # define_routes do |map|
  #   map.connect 'admin/foo/:action', :controller => 'admin/asset'
  # end

  def activate
    # admin.tabs.add "Foo", "/admin/foo", :after => "Layouts", :visibility => [:all]
  end
  def deactivate
    # admin.tabs.remove "Foo"
  end
    
end

Things to do on activation - add admin tabs, etc

foo_extension.rb

class FooExtension < Radiant::Extension

  version "1.0"
  description "Describe your extension here"
  url "http://foo.com"

  # define_routes do |map|
  #   map.connect 'admin/foo/:action', :controller => 'admin/asset'
  # end
  
  def activate
    # admin.tabs.add "Foo", "/admin/foo", :after => "Layouts", :visibility => [:all]
  end

  def deactivate
    # admin.tabs.remove "Foo"
  end
end

Things to do on deactivation - remove tabs, etc

KCKCC Problem #1:

LDAP Directory Integration

LDAP Directory Integration

• Motivation & Requirements
  • "One place" for directory info - no more manual updates
  • Customizable queries
  • Ability to test queries from Admin UI

LDAP Directory Integration

• Solutions
  • Custom wrapper around ruby-ldap, with a little Radiant integration
  • Custom model for a query, with admin UI
  • Custom global tags

class LdapSystem
  #...
  def search(options = {})
    options.symbolize_keys!.reverse_merge! :base_dn => base_dn,
        :filter => "(objectClass=*)",
        :scope => LDAP::LDAP_SCOPE_SUBTREE,
        :attrs => ["dn", "givenName", "sn", "mail"],
        :sort => "sn"
 
    if options[:attrs].is_a? String
      options[:attrs] = options[:attrs].split(",").collect(&:strip)
    end
    connection.simple_bind(bind_user, bind_password) unless connection.bound?
    results = connection.search2(options[:base_dn], options[:scope], 
        options[:filter], options[:attrs]) rescue []
    results.collect { |r| dearrayify(r) }
  end
end

class LdapQuery < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...
  def execute
    attrs = attributes.reject { |k,v|
        v.blank? or k.to_s == 'name'
        }.symbolize_keys
     LdapSystem.search(attrs)
  end
  # ...
end

Custom Admin UI - Create

Custom Admin UI - List

  tag "directory:query" do |tag|
    name = tag.attr['name']
    base, filter, attrs = tag.attr['base'], tag.attr['filter'], tag.attr['attrs']
    if name and query = LdapQuery.find_by_name(name)
      tag.locals.results = query.execute
      tag.expand unless tag.locals.results.empty?
    elsif filter
      query = LdapQuery.new :base_dn => base, :filter => filter, :attrs => attrs
      tag.locals.results = query.execute
      tag.expand unless tag.locals.results.empty?
    else
      raise TagError, "Must specify at least a filter on directory queries."
    end
  end

<r:directory:query name="Everyone"> ... </r:directory:query>

LDAP in Action

  # We need to process the page everytime, so that we can send the email!
  def cache?
    false
  end

  def process(request, response)
    @request, @response = request, response
    @form_name, @form_error = nil, nil
    if request.post?
      @form_name = request.parameters[:mailer_name]
      @form_data = request.parameters[:mailer]
      @form_conf = config['mailers'][form_name].symbolize_keys || {}
      # If there are recipients defined, send email...
      if form_conf.has_key? :recipients
        if send_mail and form_conf.has_key? :redirect_to
          response.redirect( form_conf[:redirect_to] )
        else
          super(request, response) 
        end
      else
        @form_error = "Email wasn't sent because no recipients are defined"
        super(request, response)
      end
    else
      super(request, response)
    end
  end

    tag "calendar" do |tag|
      name = tag.attr["name"].strip
      old_calendar = tag.locals.calendar
      old_events = tag.locals.events
      tag.locals.calendar = Calendar.find_by_name(name)
      if old_calendar
        old_events ||= old_calendar.events.find(:all,
            :order => "start_date asc, start_time asc")
        new_events = tag.locals.calendar.events.find(:all, 
            :order => "start_date asc, start_time asc")
        tag.locals.events = new_events & old_events
      end
      tag.expand
    end

  # Allows URLs to direct to the virtual course listing subpage
  def find_by_url(url, live = true, clean = false)
    url = clean_url(url) if clean
    if url =~ %r{#{self.url}(\w+)}
      prefix = $1
      children.find_by_class_name 'SyllabiCoursesPage'
    else
      super
    end
  end

  def render
    lazy_initialize_parser_and_context
    @context.globals.prefix = Prefix.find_by_prefix(get_prefix_from_url)
    super
  end

  private
    def request_uri
      request.request_uri unless request.nil?
    end
  
    def get_prefix_from_url
      $1 if request_uri =~ %r{#{parent.url}/?(\w+)/?$}
    end