Create Custom Content Lists or RSS Feeds – OpenCities

This task is for users with the OC Developer role.

Content lists can be used to list pages and files within your sites. These can be created as lists that can be embedded on a page or an RSS feed. If you’re trying to build a list view that doesn’t need pagination or filtering, then you might be able to build it using our WYSIWYG content list builder. If you do want a list with pagination, filters, or an RSS feed, then you have to create a content list.

This help topic is for developers who want to build advanced content lists. If you’re not a developer, we recommend building content lists through the WYSIWYG.

To create a content list or RSS feed:

Go to More > Content Lists
Click Create New Content List.
Change the settings of your template. Keep reading for more information about the options in each tab.

Overview Tab

The overview tab contains the basic settings for the content list. The options include:

Name: A unique name for your content list.
Short description: A short description of the content list. This is to explain why this content list was created. This can be helpful for later or for other users accessing your admin environment.
List type: This defines whether you’re building a List to embed within a page or creating an RSS Feed.
Repeat layout: If the content list is set to render on multiple columns, this setting will control how the individual columns are displayed. You can choose Table or Flow. Choose Table to use HTML elements to write extra CSS to render it as a column. We recommend not including this. Use the grid framework instead for better control and better accessibility compliance. You should only use Repeat Layout when the grid framework can’t be used.
Repeat columns: Set the number of columns to display the results in. Setting this to 1 means the system will not render a table to additional HTML markup.
Repeat direction: If you have multiple columns, then you can set a repeat direction.
Max results: The maximum number of items to return. Even if you are creating a list with pagination, we recommend that you set a max result to make sure the list performs well.
Results per page: The number of items per page.
Cache results: This setting is used when you create a list with many results and pages. It increases the list's performance. For most lists, you can leave this empty.
No initial results: A content list will always return results based on the content types you have selected. If you don’t want the content list to show results until the user sets a filter, check this box.
Type of content to list: The content types to include in the list. The options include files as well.
Hide replicate shared pages: By default, a content list will return all pages matching the filter. If you have shared pages on your site, you might get the original shared page and replica pages in the same list. To avoid this situation, check this box. The system will ensure that only one copy of the original page or the replica page is included in the list.
Hide files uploaded to content pages: If you are creating a list that includes files such as documents, images, and media, the system will include files uploaded directly to a page. Check this box to exclude these files.
Ignore attachment text for keyword search: When a keyword search is performed on a content list, the system will search the text of the documents directly uploaded to the page as well. Check this box to disable this.
Enable custom processing: Check this box to get the system to do some additional processing when a content list is rendered on a page. An example of this is the file size and the details that are appended to a file link. Some of this processing can be expensive to process, so avoid this option if you don’t need this for your content list.
Check view permission: You can set view permissions per page or section in the site tree. This works for the Intranet or any password-protected sites. Check this box to make the system check view permissions before showing the user the page.
Enable best bets: Check this box to include the best bets you’ve created for your site.

Sort & Filter Tab

General

This section allows you to choose which site to include content from and set a content path and/or file path to list content from.

Content groups: Select which sites to include content from. Pages from password-protected sites, like Intranets, will not display on a public-facing site.
Default filter value: Use this field if the search parameters don’t cover your scenario or you want to use a regular expression to filter the list.
- Required format:
```
<Regex><dd>[Field name here]</dd><pattern>Regex pattern here</pattern></Regex>
```
- Sample input:
  The following string will filter pages starting with ‘A’:
```
<Regex><dd>Name</dd><pattern>(?i:^A.*)</pattern></Regex> 
```
Content path: The path can be set to be an Absolute path or a Relative path. If you choose None, the list will search for pages within the whole content tree.
- Absolute:
  - Select the page you want to search under.
  - By default, the list will only look for pages directly under the selected page. If you want to search all pages under the selected page, select Search all descendants.
- Relative:
  - The list will include pages under the page the list is embedded on.
  - If you want to search all pages under the selected page, select Search all descendants.
File path: Choose None to get the list to look through the full asset library, or select Absolute to choose a particular folder to include files from. If you want to include all files under a selected folder, select Search all descendants.

Sort Options

This section allows you to configure the default sorting of the list. You can have a single sort option or a multilevel sort. Click Add to insert a new level of sort options. Fields available to sort will depend on the content types you have chosen for the list.

There are three unique system-level sort methods:

Sequence: The order of pages on the content tree.
Random: Randomize the sort each time the page reloads.
Relevance: If you include a keyword search filter, you can use the relevance option. The item listed will be sorted based on the relevance to the keyword searched.

Relevance boosting

If you use relevance as a sort option, you get an additional boosting setting to control the relevance score. You can set the priority level of each piece of content.

For example, you can set the title to be very important and the keyword to be important. This means that when the searched keyword matches the content in the title field, that piece of content will get a higher relevancy score than a page with the keyword in the keyword field.

Search Parameters

This section allows you to configure the default search parameters for this list. The field available will depend on the content types chosen for the list. To add a specific field as a search parameter, select the field from the drop-down list and click Add.

Once a field is added to the list, you’ll get a few options to configure depending on the field input type. Give it a Default Value, then choose any of these three options:

Reuse: If you don’t check this box, the applied filter will only be used on the initial state of the content list. When the site user selects an option from the filter and hits save, this particular filter will be disregarded.
Inherit: Use this option to inherit the value from the current page to use as the filter. If you choose this option, you can leave the Default Value empty.
Personalise: This option works when you are within the Intranet. If enabled, the list will try to get the related value from user details and filter the list. The mapping is done based on the field name. If the value is not present, the user will see all pages or files.

Edit Template Tab

This tab allows you to edit the template for the list view. There are nine templates you can edit to build the full list view template. Go to Edit content list or RSS feed templates for more information.

If you're building an RSS feed, use http://validator.w3.org/feed/ to validate it when it's finished. After that, you can add it to a page using the hyperlink manager in the WYSIWYG.