Content (Collections)

Content (Collections)

The Content section in the project sidebar is where you work with structured content that belongs to your storefront project—similar to a lightweight CMS inside the Cockpit. It lists the content types your storefront declares (for example blog posts, recipes or authors) and their entries (the individual items of each type).

Content types are not created in Cockpit. Developers declare them in the storefront's configuration; see Content Collections for how.

Where to click

In the project sidebar, open Content › Collections. The group appears once Laioutr has enabled content for your organization (ask Laioutr support), and you have permission to edit content in the project.

URLs follow the pattern
/o/{organization}/p/{project}/content
and, for a single content type or entry,
.../content/{entityType}
and
.../content/{entityType}/{entryId}.

Collections overview

The Collections page lists every content type of the project. The name is shown in words: a type the storefront calls BlogPost appears as Blog Post.

Each row shows:

• Name
• Updated — when an entry of the type last changed, or — when the type has no entries yet
• Edited by — who made that change
• Entries — how many entries the type has
• a ⋮ menu with Open and New entry

Click a row to open that type's entries list.

Above the table, search narrows the list by name, and the sort menu orders it by Name A–Z (the default), Recently updated or Most entries. Types without entries come last when you sort by update. Below the table you can page through the list and choose how many types a page shows (10, 20 or 50).

The Documentation link at the top right opens this page.

If nothing is listed yet

You see You don't have a collection yet. Content types are not created in this screen: they come from your project configuration, or from an installed app that brings its own. Two cards below point to the documentation and to the App Store. Otherwise, a developer declares content types in the storefront's configuration and deploys it.

Types marked "Not declared"

A type that still has entries but that the deployed storefront no longer declares stays in the list with a Not declared badge, so its entries remain reachable. You cannot create, edit or publish entries of such a type until the storefront declares it again; New entry in its menu is disabled.

If the storefront cannot be reached, Cockpit says so and lists the content types as the storefront last declared them. If Cockpit has never read the storefront's declaration, it lists only the types that already have entries.

Inside a collection (entries list)

The page shows the collection's name under the label Collection.

Add Entry at the top right creates a new entry and opens the entry editor. It is disabled for a type the storefront no longer declares. A collection without entries shows Create your first entry with the same button.

Search and sort

• Search entries… finds entries by title, name or slug, in any language.
• The sort menu orders the list by Newest first (the default), Oldest first or Recently updated.

Search, sort, page and page size are part of the page's address. When you open an entry and go back, the list is as you left it, and you can share a link to a filtered list.

Entries table

Each row is one entry. You see:

• a checkbox to select the entry (see Bulk actions)
• the entry's image, when the type has one; an empty frame when the entry has no image yet
• Name — the entry's title or name. A warning sign next to it means the entry has validation issues.
• Edited by — who last changed the entry
• Updated — when the entry last changed
• Status — shown as a coloured badge (see below)
• a ⋮ menu:
  • Open
  • Publish — for a draft or a changed entry
  • Unpublish — for a live or a changed entry, after a confirmation
  • Delete — after a confirmation that tells you how many other entries link to the entry

Click a row to open the entry. Below the table you can page through the entries and choose how many a page shows (10, 20, 50 or 100).

Bulk actions

Select entries with their checkboxes, or all entries of the page with the checkbox in the header. A bar replaces the search and shows how many are selected, with three actions:

• Publish — publishes every selected entry, after a confirmation.
• Delete — deletes every selected entry, after a confirmation that tells you how many other entries link to them.
• Clear — clears the selection.

While the action runs, the bar shows its progress. When it ends, a message says how many entries changed. Each entry is published or deleted on its own, so one entry that cannot be published does not stop the others. If some entries did not change, a dialog lists them, each with a link and the reason — for example validation issues, an entry that was being saved at that moment, or a result that is unknown because the connection failed. Open those entries and try again.

The selection only ever holds entries on the current page. Changing the page, the search, the sort or the page size clears it.

Not served by the CMS

Below the table, a collapsed list can name parts of the type that the storefront cannot answer from the CMS—for example a search query—with the reason for each. It is information for developers; nothing needs to be done in Cockpit.

Entry statuses (plain language)

Statuses describe where the entry stands relative to the live storefront:

• Draft — work in progress; not treated as live.
• Changed — previously published content with unpublished edits (your team can treat this as “pending update”).
• Live — the entry is published for customers.

Editing an entry

Header actions

On the entry screen you see the entry label, a link back to its collection, and a status badge.

Actions include:

• Publish — for a draft; turns it live for the storefront after it passes validation.
• Publish Changes — for a changed entry; makes your latest edits live. Unpublish is then in the More actions menu.
• Unpublish — for a live entry; takes it off the live storefront after a confirmation. Links to it from other entries stop resolving.
• Delete — removes the entry (use with care).

You also see who created the entry and when, and who last updated it.

Editing together

Several people can edit the same entry at once and see each other's changes live. Changes are saved automatically; an indicator in the header shows the connection. If editing is not possible for the moment—for example while the entry is opening, or when too many editor tabs are open in the project—a message above the form says why.

Multilingual fields

If your project has several languages, the editor shows tabs—one per language. The default language carries a small badge. Fields you change apply to the language tab you have selected, so you can translate or adjust copy per locale. A field left empty in a language shows the value of the language it falls back to, and a field can copy its value from another language.

Form content

The body of the editor is built from your storefront's schema: one group per component of the content type, with fields for text, numbers, choices, dates, links, media, rich text and more, depending on the type. Required fields show validation if left empty.

Some components are required: they carry a red asterisk, and the entry cannot be published without them.

Images and other media are chosen or uploaded directly in their field.

Some complex field types may still show a short message that there is no editor for this field yet, so the value can only be viewed—your developer can adjust the schema or wait for a future release.

Links to other entries

If the content type links to other content types, a Links card below the form holds one group per link. A link to one entry has a Choose… button; a link to several entries has a search field (Search followed by the link's name) and an ordered list you can move items up and down in. Both search the entries of the target type, and the search also offers Create new {type}. Click a linked entry to open it. A link whose target was deleted shows as Deleted entry, with a button to remove it.

Publishing and validation

Publish checks the entry against the schema of the deployed storefront. If there are blocking validation errors, the entry is not published and the issues are listed—fix the highlighted fields first. Warnings, such as an entry that is getting large, do not block publishing. Publish is available once every change has reached the server; until then it is disabled.

If the storefront cannot be reached, the form opens on the schema it last read and says so. You can keep editing; publishing works again once the storefront is reachable.

If the entry cannot be loaded

You may see a message that the entry could not be loaded—for example after someone else deleted the entry or the link is outdated.

How this ties to the rest of Laioutr

• Content types reflect what your frontend project knows about—driven by apps and configuration, not by Cockpit clicks. A new or changed content type appears after the storefront is deployed.
• Publishing an entry makes it visible on the public site with the next page request; no deploy is needed. Drafts can be viewed on the storefront through content preview.
• For schema changes, new content types, and the limits on entry size and open editor tabs, see Content Collections and involve developers or installed apps as for other project capabilities.