The Blocks modules aims to provide developers with a flexible foundation for defining reusable blocks of content or widgets that can be managed in the CMS.

• Blocks are Versioned
• Blocks with Forms possible (through Block_Controller)
• Drag and Drop re-ordering of Blocks
• Duplicate Blocks
• BlockSets for global blocks
• Allow exclusion of any page types from using Blocks
• Allow disabling of default/example block type - ContentBlock
• Allow disabling of specific blocks

See the upgrade guide

• SilverStripe CMS ~3.1
• GridFieldExtensions
• MultivalueField
• GridField BetterButtons

• GridField Copybutton (duplication of blocks, from BlockAdmin)

composer require sheadawson/silverstripe-blocks

Install via composer, run dev/build

BlockManager:
  themes:
    simple:
      areas:
        Sidebar: true # a Sidebar area will be available on all page types in simple theme
        BeforeContent:
          only: HomePage # a BeforeContent area will be available only on HomePage page types in simple theme
        AfterContent:
          except: HomePage # a AfterContent area will be available on all page types except HomePage in simple theme
        Footer: true # a Footer area will be available on all page types in simple theme

      use_blocksets: false # Whether to use BlockSet functionality (default if undeclared: true)
      use_extra_css_classes: true # Whether to allow cms users to add extra css classes to blocks (default if undeclared: false)
      prefix_default_css_classes: 'myprefix--' # prefix the automatically generated CSSClasses based on class name (default if undeclared: false)
      exclude_from_page_types: # Disable the Blocks tab completely on these pages of these types
        - ContactPage
      #disabled_blocks: #allows you to disable specific blocks
      #  - ContentBlock
  use_default_blocks: false # Disable/enable the default Block types (ContentBlock) (default if undeclared: true)
  block_area_preview: false # Disable block area preview button in CMS (default if undeclared: true)

Remember to run ?flush=1 after modifying your .yml config to make sure it gets applied.

Adding the BeforeContent and AfterContent blocks would look something like

<article>
	<h1>$Title</h1>
	$BlockArea(BeforeContent)
	<div class="content">$Content</div>
	$BlockArea(AfterContent)
</article>

$BlockArea(BeforeContent) will loop over and display all blocks assigned to the BeforeContent area on the current page

You can limit a block area to a maximum number of blocks using the second limit parameter

<article>
	$BlockArea(NewsBlocks, 3)
</article>

You will now be able to add Blocks to Pages via the CMS page edit view and in the Blocks model admin. You can also define "BlockSets" in the Blocks model admin. BlockSets can be used to apply a common collection of blocks to pages that match the criteria you define on the set.

This module ships with a basic ContentBlock, but this can be disabled through the `BlockManager::use_default_blocks config.

When editing a block, you can restrict who can see it in the frontend by selecting "logged in users" or "users from these groups" under the Viewer Groups tab.

There are 2 types of templates you should be aware of.

The BlockArea template is responsible for looping over and rendering all blocks in that area. You can override this by creating a copy of the default BlockArea.ss and placing it in your theme's templates/Includes folder.

It's likely that your block areas may require different templates. You can achieve this by creating a BlockArea_{AreaName}.ss template.

Each subclass of Block requires it's own template with the same name as the class. So, SlideshowBlock.php would have a SlideshowBlock.ss template. If your block requires different templates depending on the BlockArea it's in, you can create SlideshowBlock_{AreaName}.ss

The current page scope can be accessed from Block templates with $CurrentPage.

To aid website admins in identifying the areas they can apply blocks to, a "Preview Block Areas for this page" button is available in the cms. This opens the frontend view of the page in a new tab with ?block_preview=1. In Block Preview mode, Block Areas in the template are highlighted and labeled.

There is some markup required in your BlockArea templates to facilitate this: The css class block-area and the data-areaid='$AreaID' attribute.

<div class='block-area' data-areaid='$AreaID'>
	<% loop BlockArea %>
		$BlockHTML
	<% end_loop %>
</div>

As of v1.0 Blocks can now handle forms. See this gist for as an example:

• Block with Form example

If your running your SS instance "themeless", you can configure your blocks using the imaginary "default" theme.

BlockManager:
  themes:
    default:
      areas:
      ...

The BlockAdmin section is not always needed to be used. If you wish, you can remove the button from the menu by inserting this to mysite/_config.php:

CMSMenu::remove_menu_item('BlockAdmin');

Until this module properly supports icons, you can define icons by creating a getTypeForGridfield method in your block. Here's an example that uses font awesome:

public function getIcon()
{
    return '<i class="fa fa-thumbs-up fa-3x" title="' . $this->singular_name() . '" aria-hidden="true"></i>';
}
public function getTypeForGridfield()
{
    $icon = $this->getIcon();
    if ($icon) {
        $obj = HTMLText::create();
        $obj->setValue($icon);
        return $obj;
    } else {
        return parent::getTypeForGridfield();
    }
}

Overview

Preview of block locations

Edit a block

Add an existing block

• Re-add: Sorting primarily by Area (in order of declaration in config), on Pages (removed in favor of dr'ndr sorting)
• Add icon/pic to base Block as method of recognition when dealing with lots of different blocks