Symfony2 Content Management Framework

Le retour d'experience sur le site CRM du groupe Bel nos-bel-idees.fr

About David Buchmann

Twitter: @dbu

David is a senior developper at Liip SA, specializing in Symfony2. He happens to also be a certified Scrum Master and sometimes enjoys doing the scrum master or product owner role for a project.

Liip is doing custom web development with PHP in Switzerland.

Introduction to the Symfony2 CMF

The Symfony CMF project makes it easier for developers to add CMS functionality to applications built with the Symfony2 PHP framework. Key development principles for the provided set of bundles are scalability, usability, documentation and testing

CMF = Content Management Framework

• A toolbox to create your own custom CMS
• Not a ready-to-use application for end users
• Not a one size fits all, but increase code sharing
  • Use what you can
  • Replace what you need
  • Ignore what you do not need
    
    

Do we suffer from NIH?

• Collaboration with Drupal and other frameworks to share basic content management code
• Based ourselves on standard tools and specs
• Leverage existing bundles and technologies of the Symfony and web world

Content Management = user controlled...

Content

Content Management = user controlled...

Menu structure

Content Management = user controlled...

URLs (Routes)

Content Management = user controlled...

Page structure (to some extent)

Symfony2 CMF Project

Diagrams

An overview with lots of pictures.

Symfony2 Control Flow

Symfony2 Control Flow

CMF additions

Routing

• ChainRouter allows to have several routers in action
• DynamicRouter for user-defined routes from a data store
• Specifies controller and page content to use
• Or just the template instead of controller (with the ContentBundle)

Content Bundle

• Provides generic controller so you need only a custom template
• Simple StaticContent model and template

Menu Bundle

• Integrate KnpMenuBundle with Doctrine
• Menu documents reference content documents
• Generates URL for content

Block: Sonata PHPCR ODM BlockBundle

• Based on the SonataBlockBundle
• Multiple blocks per page
• Blocks can be reused on different page

Utility services

Publish Workflow

• Reusing security component with custom voters
• Hooked into Symfony2 security
• Hooked into DynamicRouter

Media bundle

• Handle images and other files
• Tie in with storage and various other media services

Frontend Editing: Create.js

• backbone.js based editing framework
• Uses RDF annotations to detect editable data
• Integrates ckeditor
• Symfony2 integration for saving data via REST

Backend: Sonata PHPCR ODM Admin

• Based on the SonataAdminBundle
• Supports tree oriented data

Some words on storage

Doctrine PHPCR ODM

PHP Content Repository + Doctrine ODM

PHPCR (aka PHP-ified JCR specification)

Like MongoDB / CouchDB ODM

but different

• Includes tree/graph structure
• Translated documents
• Versioning
• Access control
• Node and subtree locking
• and more

• PHP Content Repositories API specification
• Graph-based, schema-less, versioning document database
  
  
• Doctrine PHPCR ODM: map nodes to your objects
• Add features like multilanguage

PHPCR provides a standardized API that can be used by any PHP content management system to interface with any content repository.

Not all data fits well in PHPCR/JCR

• For example aggregation is better done in an RDBMS
• Store web store product description in PHPCR/JCR
• Store web store inventory and orders in RDBMS

Le retour d'experience sur

nos-bel-idees.fr

- des bons de réduction -

Les bons de réductions sont gérés par un prestataire externe via des iframes et un webservice

- des opérations spéciales (jeux, tirages au sort, ...) -

Les "temps forts" sont gérés indépendamment du site CRM

- des recettes de cuisine -

Toutes les recettes proviennent d'une base de recettes centrale du groupe via des webservices.

- des contenus éditoriaux originaux (créés sur le site) -

L'édition frontale des pages

L'édition des homes pages

L'édition des zones de push

Widget d'édition d'un push bon de réduction.
L'édition d'une zone de push peut être propagé à toutes les pages sœurs.

Evolution du contenu

public function Up()
{
    $manager = $this->documentHandler->getManager();

    // coverflow
    $push = new Block\PushBlock();
    $push->setParentDocument($parent);
    $push->setPosition(3);
    $push->setContent(<<<HTML
        <a class="square push" href="/idees-recettes/Recette-de-dorian-cuisine">
            <img src="/bundles/nosbelideessite/img/push/push-dorian.png" alt="Les recettes tradi de notre blogueur Dorian">
        </a>
    HTML
    );
    $manager->persist($push);

    // save
    $manager->flush();

    // create publish page
    $manager->checkpoint($parent);
}
            

Conclusion

Thank you & merci!

Please give feedback on joind.in/9359

Contact us on IRC or Twitter or by Email:

@dbu / david@liip.ch

@alexisjanvier / alexis.janvier@rappfrance.com

Github projects

• Github Organization
• CMF sandbox | live demo
• create.js and hallo
• PHPCR and the implementation Jackalope
• PHPCR ODM and DoctrinePHPCRBundle
• Sonata PHPCR AdminBundle

Resources

• CMF Documentation
• #symfony-cmf IRC
• Mailinglist devs | users
• http://cmf.symfony.com
• Symfony CMF wiki
• JSR 283 (aka JCR 2, read Chapter 3)
• JSR 333 (aka JCR 2.1)

La création de page