Organizing Content Items

The content repository organizes content items in a hierarchical structure similar to a file system. You manage content items in the repository using the same basic operations as in a file system:

• A freshly installed content repository consists of a single "root" folder (analogous to the root directory / in UNIX or an empty partition in Windows or MacOS).
• You organize items by creating subfolders under the root.
• You can move or copy items from one folder to another.
• You can create "links" or "shortcuts" for items to make them accessible from within other directories.
• Each item has a "file name" and an absolute "path" that is determined by its location on a particular branch of the repository tree. For example, the path to an item named widget in the folder products would be /products/widget.

The content repository adds an additional twist to a traditional filesystem: any content item, not just a folder, may serve as a container for any number of other content items. For example, imagine a book consisting of a preface, a number of chapters and a bibliography (which in turn may have any number of entries). The book itself is a content item, in that it has attributes (publisher, ISBN number, publication date, synopsis, etc.) associated with it. It also is the logical container for all its components.

It is important to note that folders are simply a special subtype of content item. The content repository's representation of a parent-child relationship between a folder and the items it contains is no different from the relationship between a book and its chapters. Folders may be thought of simply as generic containers for grouping items that are not necessarily part of a greater whole.

An Example

Consider a simple repository structure with the following contents:

Note the following:

• The root folder of the content repository has a special ID which is returned by the function content_item.get_root_folder.
• Regular content items such as index and about may be stored directly under the root folder.
• The "About Us" page has a photo as a child item. Note that the path to the photo is /about/photo. Internally, the photo's parent_id (in the cr_items table) is set to the item_id of the "About Us" page.
• The "Press" folder contains two items. Internally, the parent_id of the "Press Index" and "Release One" items are set to the item_id of the "Press" folder.

Note that the same effective organization could have been achieved by creating the "Press Index" item under the root, and having press releases as its children. Using the folder approach may have the following advantages:

• Content management systems can take advantage of the folder structure to implement an intuitive user interface analagous to familiar desktop tools (Windows Explorer, MacOS Finder, etc.).
• You can use the content repository API to constraint the type of content that a folder may contain (except for the index page). For example, it is possible to limit the contents of the "Press" folder to items of type "Press Release." See the Content Folder API for more details.