Accessing cms content from the app

Instance Variables

When rendering partials, helpers from CMS you have access to @cms_site, @cms_layout and @cms_page. For example, you can probably use page object to render a navigation. Application layout also has access to those variables if used in the Cms::Layout.

Helper methods

There are two helper methods available: cms_page_content() and more frequently used cms_snippet_content().

cms_page_content is used to access content inside page blocks. If you have a page that has its content stored against {{cms:page:content}} or {{cms:field:content}} you can easily retrieve it like so: cms_page_content(:content). If you want to use this method outside CMS rendering, like in your own view/controller, you need to provide a Cms::Page object: cms_page_content(:content, Cms::Page.find_by_full_path('/herp/derp'))

Similarly, you can get the snippet content with cms_snippet_content(:example) if you have a Cms::Snippet with slug 'example'. Once again, outside CMS rendering you may need to provide Cms::Site object (although it's usually found automatically): cms_snippet_content(:example, Cms::Site.find_by_hostname('example.com'))

Render CMS Page

You can use CMS pages as regular views:

def index
  @events = Event.all
  render :cms_page => '/events/index'
end

Now a page with full_path '/events/index' will be rendered. You probably want to define a partial tag that will handle rendering of the @events. Like so: {{cms:partial:events/index}}. Generally it makes sense to have normal view files at the start, and then you just rename them to be a partial (leading underscore character).

Note that ComfortableMexicanSofa will attempt to rescue ActionView::MissingTemplate by serving a matching CMS page.

Render CMS Layout

What if you don't want to create CMS pages and partials but want to render your regular Rails template inside CMS layout? You can do it like so:

def index
  @events = Event.all
  render :cms_layout => 'three_column', :cms_blocks => {
    :column_a => 'Content About Events',
    :column_b => { :template => '/events/index' },
    :column_c => { :partial  => '/events/calendar' }
  }
end

So if you have a layout with slug three_column with content like this: "{{cms:page:column_a}} {{cms:page:column_b}} {{cms:page:column_c}}". It should be pretty obvious that column_a will be populated with provided text, column_b will use rendered template and column_c will have rendered partial as its content.

If layout has a simple tag like this: "{{cms:page:content}}" and you're OK with rendering the actual default template for that action you can simplify render call to this:

def index
  # same as:
  # render :cms_layout => 'one_column', :cms_blocks => { :content => { :template => '/events/index' }}
  render :cms_layout => 'one_column'
end

Please note that for render :cms_layout instance variable @cms_page is not available as there's no actual page. For purposes of generating navs, etc consider either reusing one of the existing pages of instantiating a new one with attributes that you need.