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Navigation Objects

Last Modified:

10 Aug 2020

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

Navigation Objects can perform one of two functions:

• create link menus such as main navigation, breadcrumbs and sitemaps to orient users on your site
• aggregate content from across one or more Branches of a site

How are Navigation Objects Used?

Most often, T4 Tags for Navigation Objects are placed in a Page Layout, Content Layout or a Content Item (within a plain text element). Some Navigation Objects have limitations around where and how they can be used.

You can learn more about how each Navigation Object type by selecting its name in the table below.

Navigation Objects can also be used within List Values, allowing a content author to select an item from a List, determining which Navigation Object is output onto the page. Or, they can be used within Media Items (e.g. JSON files), if the Media Type is configured to parse for T4 tags.

While Navigation Objects work within List Values and Media, this is not intended functionality and is not routinely tested. In addition, Navigation Objects that are used within Lists or Media are not recorded in the Navigation Usage Report.
While this approach can be used, it should be used with caution.

The Navigation Object Listing Screen

When you go to Assets > Navigation you will see a list of existing Navigation Objects on the page.

The five columns in the table are Name, Type, Status, Group and the Actions button. 

You can filter the list of Navigation Objects by inputting the Name, ID, Type, Status or Group in the "Filter" text input:

Types of Navigation Objects

Create a New Navigation Object

To create a new Navigation Object, select Add new navigation. For further details, refer to our detailed step by step on creating a Navigation Object.

Share a Navigation Object

Global Navigation Objects can be used by any Power User but can only be edited by Administrators. Power Users and Administrators can create Navigation Objects within groups or share Navigation Objects with other groups. The Navigation Object can either be shared with Read-only or Full access:

• Read-only access: Power Users within the group can view the Navigation Object, and use the Navigation Object, but cannot edit it
• Full access: Power Users within the group can view and edit the Navigation Object

A Global Navigation Object cannot be shared with Groups; however, you can move a global Navigation Object to a Group by editing the Navigation Object and selecting a Primary Group.

Duplicate a Navigation Object

You can duplicate a Navigation Object. Do this either into a new Group or the same Group or with other Groups. A duplicate Navigation Object creates a copy of the original and the two Navigation Objects are not linked to each other.

Changes made to one Navigation Object do not affect duplicated versions. Sharing and Duplication are two different functions.

Disable a Navigation Object

If a Navigation Object is disabled, it will remain within TERMINALFOUR but will not generate any output onto the published site. To disable an object, Edit the Navigation Object and use toggle the "Enabled" toggle to the Disabled position:

On the Navigation Object Listing, the object will now be listed as Disabled with a label:

Delete a Navigation Object

If you are unsure whether or not a Navigation Object is in use, check the Navigation Object Usage Reporting first. In the row of the corresponding Navigation Object, open the Actions drop-down list and select Delete.

A confirmation pop-up window appears and you can confirm your choice and Delete, or Cancel the action. Upon successful deletion, a green banner appears confirming the deletion, and the object is removed from the list.

When a Navigation Object is deleted you cannot recover the data. To retain the Navigation Object, but prevent it from generating anything onto the site, rather disable the object.

Content Types

Last Modified:

20 Dec 2024

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.3.18 and up

Description

A Content Type is the structure of a Content Item and is made up of one or more Content Elements. You can think of Content Types as structured templates for the Content Items that you will create, edit and publish.

When we create a Content Item, we use a specific Content Type to determine the number and type of elements that can be populated with Content. 

For example, a news article Content Type might comprise Title, Main Body and Image Content elements. A user will populate some or all of these elements when adding a news article to the site.

To publish content on your site, a Content Type must use a Content Layout to determine the elements that will be displayed on a page and how they will be presented. If you are publishing a webpage, inserting T4 Tags between HTML tags will act as placeholders for our content when creating a Content Layout.

Each Channel has a default Content Layout associated with it, so for your content to appear as defined in the Content Layout, the Content Layout name must match the default associated with the Channel.

The diagram shows how a single Content Item using a Content Type can be displayed in two different ways. In this example, the Content Item uses the "Article" Content Type. This Content Type has two Content Layouts - one that is used to publish on the news webpage (text/html) and another for publishing to RSS (text/rss). Each Channel has a default Content Layout associated with it.

Who can use Content Types and where?

There are three ways that the use of Content Types can be restricted.  These can be broken into two categories:

Who can use a Content Type?

• User Level: this is the Minimum User Level that can create or edit content using the Content Type
• Group Membership: even though a User may fulfill the Minimum User Level requirement, if a Group is specified, the User must also be a member of that Primary and/or Shared Group to use the Content Type.

If no Group is assigned to the Content Type, then it is labeled as Global. Assets which are labeled as Global are available to any User Level with permission to use it. How that Asset can be used is restricted by the Role Settings for that User Level. For instance, Power Users cannot edit a Global Content Type unless it is moved to a Group from which they have permission to edit from.

Permissions extend to what a User can do with a Content Type. When a Shared Group has been assigned to a Content Type, you can determine if the Users within that Group have Read Only or Full Access to the Content Type. 

When Full Access is assigned, Users in that Group can create and edit content with the Content Type and Power Users in that group can edit the Content Type itself. With Read-Only, Users in that Group can only create and edit content with the Content Type.

Where Can a Content Type Be Used?

Section / Branch: a Content Type must be enabled for a Section and/or Branch for it to be used

Even though a User may have Group and User Level access to a Content Type, it cannot be used until it has been enabled for a Branch or Section. Administrators and Power Users can enable Content Types for the sections of the site to which they have been given access by editing the Section and selecting the Content Types tab.

Content Type Listing

When you go to Assets > Content Types, you will see a list of existing Content Types in the Content Types page.

The three columns in the table are Name, Group and the Actions button:

Creating a Content Type

To create a new Content Type select Create Content Type

This screen has two tabs - General Information and Elements.

General Information

Content Elements

A Content Type is made up of Content Elements. These are the fields that will be populated to make up a Content Item.

Guidelines for using the Name Content Element

The first element of every Content Type is a plain text element called Name. This element cannot be removed or renamed and the Element Type cannot be changed. Though the Name given is not a unique identifier (since more than one Content Item can share the same name), it is used to allow users to identify content within a Section or when approving content.

It's recommended that you use the Name element for tracking the content within the system but avoid publishing it on your site. If the Name element is published on the site, you should indicate so in the description of the content element.

There are a couple of ways to use the Name element to help track your content's use:

1. Names that Describe a Content Location

Using this setup the Name element can be used to give a descriptive name to the content so it can be easily identified. Content could be added to the site on the 'Department News' section. In this case, the Name and Heading elements could be populated as follows:

• Name: Department News Articles
• Heading: News Article Heading 

Using the example above, the content can be quickly identified within TERMINALFOUR as it has a descriptive name which indicates the location of the content.

2. Names that Describe a Content Type

Pages that have multiple content items can use the Name element to describe the Content Type in use. Doing so allows a user to scan the list of content and find the relevant content item to update. e.g., "right sidebar" or "left column content".

Content Element Types

Content comes in different formats and so do Content Elements. While a Media Content element is used to add items from the Media Library, a Plain Text Element is used to input plain, unformatted text.

Though most Content Types require more than one element, there are exceptions (e.g., Data and Web Objects, and others) where no additional elements may be needed.

While a page analysis process determines the types of elements, you need to create, make sure you allow for some flexibility.

Remember - each element in a Content Type must have a unique Name. It is good practice to use descriptive names which help users when adding content.

This is a list of TERMINALFOUR standard formatted elements:

Creating Content Elements

When creating or editing a Content Element you will populate rows in the Content Element table. Each row is broken up into the following columns:

Conditional Logic

Conditional Elements (Introduced in 8.4.0) allows Admins and Power Users to customize the Content Editing Experience by conditionally displaying elements based on specific criteria.

This feature helps simplify and streamline the content creation process by showing only relevant fields to Content Editors.

Learn more about Conditional Elements.

When the General Information and Elements tabs have been populated and saved, the Content Layout tab appears. You can proceed to build a Content Layout.

Content Layouts

A Content Type can have one or multiple Content Layouts, these can either be linked together or used individually.

About Fulltext

When Content Layouts are linked together, an element in the Content Layout needs to link to the next Content Layout. This uses a feature called "fulltext".

In this case, we might have a listing page where each item links to a more detailed page. For example, a list of news articles will each feature the headline and an abbreviated version of the article. Each headline links to the full version of the related news story. Both versions use the same Content Type with different Content Layouts. There is an explanation of this within the documentation of the T4 Tag for Fulltext.

Create a Content Layout

To access Content Layouts, go to the Content Type listing page at Assets > Content Types and identify the Content Type you need. Select the Content Type name or select the Actions button and select Edit. From the Content Type page select the Content Layout tab. You'll see a list of all existing Content Layouts. You can filter the list by name. The number of results listed can be modified via the drop-down list on the top left. If there are no existing Content Layouts, the list will be empty:

Selecting Create New Layout will open a new screen:

You can add code in the "Content layout code" tab:

Processing T4 Tags and Handlebars Expressions in Content

Some users like to create a "Code Only" Content type that can be used by admins or advanced users. This content type is generally made up of a Plain text element where users can enter code that will be rendered as-is on the page.

If you're creating a Code Only content type and you want users to be able to add T4 Tags or Handlebars Expressions it's important that the Content Layout Processor is set appropriately on this Content Type.

For example: A Code Only Content Type that is using the "T4 Tag content" layout processor will be able to parse and output T4 tags added by content editors but not Handlebars expressions. And similarly, a Code Only Content Type that is using the "Handlebars content" layout processor will be able to parse and output Handlebars expressions added by content editors but not T4 tags.

Content Layout Versioning

From version 8.3.13 you can manage versions of Content Layouts by selecting the History tab. From here you'll see a list of all versions of the current Content Layout.

The name of the current version is bolded and you'll see a "Current" label.

To compare two versions side by side, just check the checkboxes and click "Compare Selected".

To make a version "Current" click "Make Current" in the comparison screen or the version listing screen.

Share a Content Type

Global Content Types can be used by any user (for areas of the site where they are enabled) but can only be edited by Administrators. Power Users and Administrators can create Content Types within groups or share Content Types with other groups. The Content Types can either be shared with Read-only or Full access:

• Read-only access: Power Users within the group can view the Content Type but cannot edit it
• Full access: Power Users within the group can view and edit the Content Type

Regardless of how the Content Type is shared, all users within the group can use the Content Type, if it is enabled on the section, and they meet the Minimum User Level.

Duplicate a Content Type

You can duplicate a Content Type. Do this either into a new Group or the same Group or with other Groups. A duplicate Content Type creates a copy of the original and the two Content Types are not linked to each other.

Delete a Content Type

If you are unsure whether or not a Content Type is in use, check the Content Type Usage Reporting first. In the row of the corresponding Content Type, open the Actions drop-down list and select Delete.

A confirmation pop-up window appears and you can confirm your choice and Delete, or Cancel the action. Upon successful deletion, a green banner appears confirming the deletion, and the Content Type is removed from the list.

System Content Types

System Content Types are Global Content types that are used by TERMINALFOUR, to store special types of content that are used in various parts of the system. When viewing the Content Type Listing, System Content Types are represented with a System badge. System Content Types cannot be edited, but it is possible to create/edit Content Layouts on them.

There are eight possible System Content Types in TERMINALFOUR:

Content Type Locking

From version 8.2.18, Content Type Locking will help you and other users see which Content Types and Layouts are locked and cannot be edited.

An asset is locked while another user makes changes to it and is unlocked when the user Saves Changes, clicks on the Cancel button or navigates away from the Edit page to another screen in TERMINALFOUR.

If the browser window or tab is closed or the Edit screen is left open indefinitely, the lock will expire after the duration configured under Content Lock Timeout in System Administration > Hierarchy & Content Settings > Content. 

A user who is editing a Content Type or Content Layout when a lock expires will receive an onscreen notification in which they can renew the lock.

When a Content Type is locked you will see a padlock icon beside the name of the Content Type which signifies that this Content Type is being edited by another user. You can see the name of the user who is editing the Content Type by hovering over it.  Locked Content Types also have less options available from the Actions menu:

When a locked Content Type is selected, the fields in the General and Element tabs are grayed out: 

If a user has already saved the Content Type, it may be locked while it is being processed. In this case, in addition to the padlock icon, you will see a cog icon. Hovering over this will inform you that updates to the Content Type are being applied. The tooltip will show the name of the user whose updates are currently being applied. You will also be able to see this from elsewhere in the product via the Notifications in the Header:

Content Layout Locking

Content Layouts that are not currently being edited by other users can be edited. If a Content Layout is being edited by another user it will be locked and will not be clickable. The Actions menu will also be grayed out:

 Just as in the Content Type lock, to see who is editing it, just hover over the padlock icon. 

Hiding a Content Element

From version 8.3.17 Administrators can hide Content Elements from content editors. This is especially useful for older Content Items where there may be redundant Content Elements that you are reluctant to delete.

Administrators will now see an additional column named "Show" when editing a Content Element. To hide a Content Element, uncheck the box for the Content Element you want to hide. 

When "Show" is unchecked for a Content Element, it will not be displayed when editing the Content Item.  

Hidden Content Elements are only hidden when editing a Content Item but are still visible when previewing and publishing content. 

"Required" Elements cannot be hidden.  

Page Layouts

Last Modified:

23 Apr 2024

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

Page Layouts provide a consistent structure and style to the pages on your website. When creating a Page Layout for an HTML page you add custom Header code (the head element and opening body tag so it might contain the logo image, meta tags, links to stylesheets etc.) and the Footer code (footer element, closing body, and HTML tags so might contain the copyright notice, footer links and links to JavaScript). When the Page Layout is modified, all pages that use it will be updated. For example, if the logo is removed from the Header code in the Page layout, this change will be reflected on all pages that use this Page Layout. 

Page Layouts can also contain T4 Tags so you can add the following to all of the pages that use the Page Layout:

• Navigation Objects e.g. adding sitewide navigation or breadcrumbs
• Media items e.g. adding items from the Media Library such as images, scripts or stylesheets
• Meta information e.g.  adding a page title and description
• Channel information e.g. adding a favicon that will is deployed on this Channel

TERMINALFOUR does not validate the code within the Page Layouts so it is up to Administrator or Power User to ensure the code is of good quality and validated.

Conducting Page Analysis to Create Page Layouts 

When creating a new Page Layout you need to determine how the page will be set up. Things to consider include:

• the elements that should appear in the Header and Footer of every page using the Page Layout
• the elements and content in the Header and Footer markup that can be replaced by T4 Tags e.g. navigation elements and images, stylesheets and scripts that are stored in the Media Library
• how the Page Layout and the main content area will look when combined when Published

This diagram shows how a Page Layout is used across multiple pages throughout the site.

The screenshot above shows a sample of the main content area within the orange box.

In the image below, the highlighted areas show parts of the Page Layout that could use Navigation Object T4 Tags. 

At this stage of your page analysis, you can identify the elements that are part of the Page Layout, elements that can be replaced by a T4 Tag and what the main content area will look like. 

Page Layout Listing

To work with Page Layout, go to Assets > Page Layouts. 

The columns in the table are Name, Group(s) and the Actions button:

Create New Page Layout

When you select Create New Layout the General Information screen is displayed:

If you are satisfied with your inputs so far, then click Save Changes.

The Header and Footer Code Tabs

When building your Page Layout you will need to consider what will appear in the header and footer of every page that uses the Page Layout. Typically, the Header tab will feature HTML elements up to and including the opening body tag, while the Footer tab will feature HTML from the closing body tag on. Using T4 Tags you can add items such as images, stylesheets and scripts from the Media Library or add navigation elements.

The following types of tags can be generated:

• Navigation: Insert navigation objects into the Page Layout
• Media: Used to reference images or CSS files
• Metadata: When you are editing a Section an option is provided to add metadata. This metadata can be used by search engines or can be used to determine how your content will look when shared on social networks.
• Channel: Using the Channel T4 Tags, you can add Channel specific information such as the Channel title, description to the Page Layout.
• Misc(ellaneous): Title tags and Edit this page tags

History Tab

Each time a Page Layout is amended and saved a new version is created. All versions of the Page Layout are listed in the History tab. 

The list in this display shows six columns:

You can choose to compare versions with a side-by-side comparison. Check two boxes in the far right column to choose the layouts to compare and select Compare selected.

The most recent version selected is shown on the left and the older version on the right. Code changes are highlighted in yellow. In this instance, the highlighted line of code in the older version on the right has been removed from the more recent version on the left. If selected, the Revert option highlighted will add this back to the more recent version.

Remember - over time you can store many Page Layout examples and versions. This provides you with a dependable record of the layouts developed and refined.

When you are satisfied with the entries and selection you have made, you can click Save changes.

Share a Page Layout

Global Page Layouts can be used by any user but can only be edited by Administrators. Power Users and Administrators can create Page Layouts within groups or share Page Layouts with other groups. The Page Layout can either be shared with Read only or Full access:

• Read only access: Power Users within the group can view the Page Layout but cannot edit it
• Full access: Power Users within the group can view and edit the Page Layout

Regardless of how the Page Layout is shared, all users within the group can use the Page Layout to apply it to a section.

Duplicate a Page Layout

You can duplicate a Page Layout. Do this either into a new Group or the same Group or with other Groups. A duplicate Page Layout creates a copy of the original and the two Page Layouts are not linked to each other.

Delete a Page Layout

If you are unsure whether or not a Page Layout is in use, check the Page Layout Usage Reporting first. In the row of the corresponding Page Layout, open the Actions drop-down list and select Delete.

A confirmation pop-up window appears and you can confirm your choice and Delete, or Cancel the action. Upon successful deletion, a green banner appears confirming the deletion, and the Page Layout is removed from the list.

Page Layout Locking

Similar to Content Type Locking, Page Layout Locking prevents multiple users editing the same Page Layout at once, a lock is placed on it while a user makes edits. Locked Page Layouts are indicated by a padlock icon next to the Page Layout name in the listing page. A locked Page Layout cannot be clicked on.

To see who is editing the Page Layout hover over the padlock icon, The Actions Menu of a locked Page Layout is disabled:

An asset is locked while another user is making changes to it and is unlocked when the user Saves Changes, clicks on the Cancel button or navigates away from the Edit page to another screen in TERMINALFOUR.

If the browser window or tab is closed or the Edit screen is left open indefinitely, the lock will expire after the duration configured under Content Lock Timeout in System Administration > Hierarchy & Content Settings > Content. 

A user who is editing a Page Layout when a lock expires will receive an onscreen notification in which they can renew the lock.

Metadata

Last Modified:

02 May 2019

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.2.3 and up Toggle Dropdown

8.0+ and up

Description

Meta tags are used to describe your page's content. They can be used to help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how a link will appear when shared on social media.

Metadata in TERMINALFOUR can be:

• added when creating and editing Sections on the Metadata tab
• automatically generated for Page last modified and Page created
• associated with Content Elements so metadata for multiple Content Items on a page is output in the Page Layout header

Configure meta tags

To configure meta tags go to Assets >  Metadata:

All new installs have the following meta tags:

• name="description"
• name="keywords"
• property="og:description"
• property="og:image"
• property="og:title"

Clients upgrading their installations should manually add the three "og" tags. These will not be added automatically during the upgrade process.

Learn more about Open Graph (og) metatags.

Meta tags can be added and removed from this page. Adding a meta tag requires a meta tag name and a meta attribute to be set. The meta attribute can be a name or a property.

Special mapping: Meta Tags for Page last modified and Page created

An optional special mapping meta tag can be used to output the Page last modified and Page created date and time. In the Special mapping column, select whether the meta tag is populated with the Page last modified or Page created date:

 The output value of these tags depends on the content within the Section.

• Page last modified: the most recent last modified date of the content in the section is output
• Page created: the create date of the oldest Content Item is output

A date format is also required for these and should comply with the Java date pattern. An example format is YYYY-MM-dd.

Managing metadata for different languages

The Language Behavior column allows you to choose from three options:

• Normal: If a translation exists for the current language then use it. If no translation exists then output nothing.
• Default to other language: If no translation exists for the current language, then output the selected language's version instead.
• Override other language: Always use the selected language for the meta tag value.

If "Default to other language" or "Override other language" is selected, in the Language option, select a language from the drop-down list.

Remember to Save changes.

Content element mappings

The meta tags can be associated with Content Elements allowing metadata for multiple Content Items on a page to be output in the Page Layout header.

For each Content Type, the name, description, id and groups are displayed. If a Content Type has mappings configured then selecting Show/hide mappings will display the mappings.

The Actions button allows you to Edit mappings or Edit content type:

If you click the Edit mappings you then select the meta tags you want to map to each element. You can map multiple elements to the same meta tag and you can also map multiple meta tags to the same element.

If you click Edit Content Type, you are transferred to the General Information tab of the corresponding Content Type.  

It is not possible to map File and Image elements.

Map & output a media element

One of the uses of mapping a media element is so you can specify an image that will accompany the link to your content when it is shared on social media.

Here's an example of a sharing card that uses the og:image meta tag to display a specific image when the page is shared on Twitter:

If you haven't already, you'll need to set up a Content Layout for the Media Content Type with the following settings:

• Name: path/*
• File Extension: Default
• Syntax type: HTML/XML
• Content Layout Processor: T4 Standard Content:

The name of this layout must be path/* - if this layout doesn't exist in your system, references to this metatag will cause a publish failure. 

Use the Content layout code:

<t4 type ="content" name="Media" output="file" />

Then, add the Media type under System administration > System settings > Media library:

• Name: Path
• Permitted file extensions: jpeg,gif,png
• Maximum file size: 5242880
• Associated content layouts: path/*

Update the Channel to set the Channel publish URL for the featured image

Edit your channel under System administration > Set up sites & channels > Channels and set a value for the Channel publish URL. This is used to form the URL for the image. In this example the value has been set to https://www.terminalfour.com/ :

Output the meta tags

Once meta tags are configured, they can then be output into the header of pages by using T4 Tags in the header of a Page Layout. The values of meta tags (without the surrounding meta tag) can also be output in Page Layouts or Content Layouts using the Section meta info navigation object.

When your page is published, you can test how it will look when shared by using service like metatags.io.

T4 tags

Last Modified:

15 Jul 2021

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

4 Tags are built are added to Page Layouts and Content Layouts using the Generate T4 tag button from Page Layouts and Content Types. When the button is clicked you can add and customize T4 Tags to the layout. 

In this example we are adding a Nav Object T4 Tag to a Page Layout:

In addition to the Generate T4 tag builder, there are other tags that can be added to Page and Content Layouts. These are all covered below.

T4 tags: Content

Last Modified:

06 Aug 2024

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Content (type="content")

Available from the Content Layout T4 tag builder.

Settings for all output methods

Output methods differ depending on the element type:

1. Normal output (inline) output="normal". Outputs the element by adopting the text style of the page.
2. Selective output output="selective-output". Used to only output the value of an element if the element is filled in.
3. Output to fulltext output="fulltext". Outputs the element on a separate page, which can have its own layout.
4. Output to image (output="image"). Outputs an image and path to the image.
5. Output to image url (output="imageurl"). Outputs the path to an image.
6. Output to file (output="file"). Outputs a file and path to the file.
7. Output to download (output="download"). Not available on the T4 Tag builder. Outputs a file and path to the file, but any links to this Content Item link directly to the file.

Modifiers

Direct edit

Disable direct edit for this element: enable-dedit="false"

This attribute can be used to prevent users from editing content in Direct Edit. This attribute is added to a T4 tag, like below:

You can edit this Content Type element

<h1>Plain text element</h1> <t4 type="content" name="Code only" output="normal" modifiers="medialibrary" enable-dedit="true" />

You cannot edit this Content Type element in direct edit:

<h1>HTML element</h1> <t4 type="content" name="HTML" output="normal" modifiers="medialibrary,nav_sections" enable-dedit="false" />

In most situations this tag enable-dedit will not exist, so its value is therefore considered null. A null value is actually considered true. Only if the value is not null and equals false, does the content element get marked as "not editable". So the below two lines would be considered the same:

<t4 type="content" name="HTML" output="normal" modifiers="medialibrary,nav_sections" /> <t4 type="content" name="HTML" output="normal" modifiers="medialibrary,nav_sections" enable-dedit="true" />

List elements

Further settings can be applied manually for lists under the tags type="content" output="normal"

List entry names, values

List entries have a name and a value and sometimes you need to specify which of these to output. To do this, add the display_field attribute to the T4 tag.

<t4 type="content" name="Element Name" output="normal" display_field="name" />

or

<t4 type="content" name="Element Name" output="normal" display_field="value" />

The use of this code effects the three different List content elements in the following way:

• Cascading list - The list entry value is displayed by default. If the attribute is missing, the value is published. An exception is when display_field="name" is added.
• Multiple select - The list entry value is displayed by default. If the attribute is missing, the value is published. An exception is when display_field="name" is added.
• Multi-select list - The list entry name is displayed by default. This is consistent with how this content element is currently published, and the default does not change for backwards compatibility reasons.

List delimiters

For Multi-select lists and Cascading list elements, the T4 tag for that list element uses a comma (,) to separate the values selected within a Content Item.

For example, if a user selects "Fruit > Apple" and "Fruit > Pear" and "Vegetable > Carrot" list values, the T4 tag outputs "Fruit, Apple, Fruit, Pear, Vegetable, Carrot".

It is possible to change the delimiters used by adding the textual-name-separator and delimiter attributes to the T4 tag.

<t4 type="content" name="Element Name" output="normal" textual-name-separator=">" delimiter="|" />

In the example above, this would output "Fruit>Apple | Fruit>Pear | Vegetable>Carrot".
For a Cascading list element, where only one item can be selected, it only uses the textual-name-separator example: "Fruit>Apple".

Media elements

Further settings can be applied manually for media under the tags type="content" output="normal".

By default, Media elements are formatted using the Media content layout on the Media Content type, but if a specific Media content layout is required, it is possible to add the formatter attribute to the T4 tag to specify the layout to use.

<t4 type="content" name="Featured image for the blog" output="normal" modifiers="" formatter="path/*" />

In the example above, the "Featured image for the blog" media element, is formatted using the "path/*" layout on the Media Content type.

Content owner elements (output="userinfo")

output="userinfo" can be used to output the details of the user.

Tag to output the username, e.g. joebloggs

<t4 type="content" name="Content Owner" output="userinfo" info="username" />

Tag to output the Full Name, e.g. Joe Bloggs

<t4 type="content" name="Content Owner" output="userinfo" info="first_last" />

Tag to output the Lastname, Firstname, e.g. Bloggs, Joe

<t4 type="content" name="Content Owner" output="userinfo" info="last_first" />

Section/Content link elements (output=linktext or output=linkurl)

Using the Tag builder, Section/Content Link elements output the full anchor tag to the selected Section Section or Content Item.

Further settings can be applied manually for section/content links under the tag type="content".

It is possible to generate the URL of the Section Section/content, or the link text for the Section Section/content by using custom T4 tags. The name is set to the name of the Section/Content link element.

The T4 tag to output the link text for the Section Section/content is:

<t4 type="content" name="element-name" output="linktext" />

The T4 tag to output the URL for the Section Section/content is:

<t4 type="content" name="element-name" output="linkurl" />

Example: Create a Content Type that has a media image with a Section Section/content link on it

This example Content type allows end users to select an image from the media library and create a link on the image:

<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Select a Link" output="linkurl" />"><t4 type="content" name="Select an Image" output="normal" modifiers=""/></a>

If a normal T4 tag is used to output Section/Content Link elements, ensure the Parse for Section Navigation tags modifier has been checked on the Content type element.

<t4 type="content" name="element" output="normal" modifiers="nav_sections"/>

If you have elements in a Content Type which are not required, you can ensure the element is not output if there is no content in the element. 

Selective output is not available with file or image elements. For image elements, consider using the output=image option.

Attributes

Example of a standard tag

The Content Type has an element "Phone". We only want HTML to be output if the user has added the phone number in the element. If no content has been added to the Phone element then nothing will be published.

<t4 type="content" output="selective-output" modifiers="" name="Phone" format="<p>Phone: $value</p>" />

Example of a tag containing quotes

Quote symbols in the HTML need to be added in their Unicode equivalent.

<t4 type="content" output="selective-output" modifiers="" name="Phone" format="<p class="phone">Phone: $value</p>" />

Example of a tag containing additional t4 tags

The format attribute can contain other T4 tags such as (language variable tag). To do this, the "process-format" attribute must be set to true, and the quote symbols in the nested t4 tag must be replaced with &quot;

<t4 type="content" output="selective-output" process-format="true" modifiers="" name="Name" format="<p><t4 type=&quot;lang-var&quot; default-language=&quot;en&quot; en=&quot;Name&quot; ga=&quot;Irish Name&quot; fr=&quot;French Name&quot; /> : $value</p>" />

Example of a tag containing different modifiers on the element value and format attribute

You can apply different modifiers (such as, htmlentities) to the element value and the format attribute. For example, you want characters within the element value to be changed to their HTML equivalent (change & to &amp;) and if you have an & in the format tag, you want it to remain as & in the output.

To do this, the "process-format" attribute must be set to true and the format-modifiers attribute is specified. You can specify the modifiers as follows:

<t4 type="content" output="selective-output" process-format="true" format-modifiers="" modifiers="htmlentities" name="Full Name" format="<p>First & Lastname : $value</p>" />

Fulltext formatters can be used to link from one Content layout to another.

Potential usage scenario

As an example: this can be used for news Items to display some of the elements on the main page (index) (Title, Date and Summary), and then link one of the elements (the Title) to the fulltext content layout to display the relevant elements (Title, Date and Main Story). 

Example standard tag

The initial Content layout needs to include a tag to generate the fulltext content. Check the channel settings to find the Type used for the channel, the default being text/html. Use Generate T4 tag, select the output method as Output to Fulltext. You can use any element to generate the fulltext content. By default, the generated URL reflects the selected element. In this case, we have selected the Question element which generates a fulltext URL similar to /mysite/question,123,en.html. 

<t4 type="content" name="Question" output="fulltext" />

A link should be provided to link to the fulltext page:

<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Question" output="fulltext" />">Link text</a>

The element referencing each layout should be unique. If the same element is referencing different fulltext layouts, they will have the same filename and overwrite each other until only the last fulltext file written will be published.

Example tag using an element to set the file name

If you want to be able to control the URL of the fulltext version of the content and make friendly URLs, you can modify the T4 Tag to use the contents of one of the elements. Specify use-element="true" and the element to be used filename-element="Title". The example below uses the Title element.

The URL for the fulltext version of the content will then contain the text entered in the title element example: "how-to-make-content,en.html".

<t4 type="content" name="Title" output="fulltext" modifiers="" use-element="true" filename-element="Title"/>

 A link should be provided to link to the fulltext page:

<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Title" output="fulltext" modifiers="" use-element="true" filename-element="Title"/>">Link text</a>

Instead of using a T4 Tag, you can specify a Content Type Element to output a friendly URL by selecting the "Use as filename" option for the Content Element.

If the "Use as filename" option is selected for a Content Element, and the T4 Tag specifies a different Content Element, the Content Element set on the T4 Tag will override the Content Element that has "Use as filename" selected.

In versions earlier than 8.3, this behaves differently. Instead the Content Element with "Use as filename" is used and overrides any Content Element specified in the T4 Tag.  

Example tag using a specific formatter

If you wish to specify a type formatter to use, the formatter attribute can be set. In the example below, the name of the Content layout is called text/website:

<t4 type="content" name="Question" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/website" />

Example of tabbed Content Type using multiple formats

Example of tabbed Content Type using multiple formats
Using the fulltext tag, multiple formats can be created and linked from the one Content Item.
This example splits the content into three tabs for "Contact Info", "Biography" and "Awards". 
Each tab contains some of the elements from the Content Type.

Create a Content Type with the following elements:

Create the first Content type layout, using text/html as the name.

<!-- start formatter="text/html" for Content Type -->
<p class="multiFormatter">
<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Biography" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/biography"/>">Biography</a>
<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Awards" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/other" />">Research and Awards</a>
<h2>Contact details</h2>
<p><strong>Name: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Name" output="normal" modifiers="" /></p>
<p><strong>Address: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Address" output="normal" modifiers="striptags,htmlentities" /></p>
<p><strong>Phone: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Phone number" output="normal" modifiers="striptags,htmlentities" /></p>
<!-- end formatter="text/html" for Content Type -->

Create the second Content type layout, using text/biography as the name.

<!-- start formatter="text/biography" for Content Type -->
<p class="multiFormatter">
<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Name" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/html" />">Contact Details</a>
<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Awards" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/other" />">Other</a></p>
<h2>Biography details</h2>
<p><strong>Name: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Name" output="normal" modifiers="" /></p>
<p><strong>Biography: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Biography" output="normal" modifiers="medialibrary,nav_sections" /></p>
<!-- end formatter="text/biography" for Content Type -->

Create the third Content type layout, using text/other as the name.

<!-- start formatter="text/other" for Content Type -->
<p class="multiFormatter">
<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Name" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/html" />">Contact Details</a>
<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Biography" output="fulltext" modifiers="" formatter="text/biography" />">Biography</a>
<h2>Research & award details</h2>
<p><strong>Name: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Name" output="normal" /></p>
<p><strong>Research Interests: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Research interests" output="normal" modifiers="striptags,htmlentities" /></p>
<p><strong>Awards: </strong><t4 type="content" name="Awards" output="normal" modifiers="striptags,htmlentities" /></p>
<!-- end formatter="text/other" for Content Type -->

When the content is published, 3 files will be published

1. index.html which will provide links to:
2. biography-280-en.html
3. awards-280-en.html

The code in the files will be in the following format

index.html (from the text/html format)

<!-- start formatter="text/html" for Content Type -->
<p class="multiFormatter">
<a href="/multi-fulltext/biography-280-en.html">Biography</a>
<a href="/multi-fulltext/awards-280-en.html">Research and Awards</a>
<h2>Contact details</h2>
<p><strong>Name: </strong>multi fulltext example</p>
<p><strong>Address: </strong>110 Amiens Street</p>
<p><strong>Phone: </strong>018509700</p>
<!-- end formatter="text/html" for Content Type -->

biography-280-en.html (from the text/biography format)

<!-- start formatter="text/biography" for Content Type -->
<p class="multiFormatter">
<a href="/multi-fulltext/name-280-en.html">Contact Details</a>
<a href="/multi-fulltext/awards-280-en.html">Other</a></p>
<h2>Biography details</h2>
<p><strong>Name: </strong>multi fulltext example</p>
<p><strong>Biography: </strong><p>All about the person.</p>
<p> </p></p>
<!-- end formatter="text/biography" for Content Type -->

awards-280-en.html (from the text/other format)

<!-- start formatter="text/other" for Content Type -->
<p class="multiFormatter">
<a href="/multi-fulltext/name-280-en.html">Contact Details</a>
<a href="/multi-fulltext/biography-280-en.html">Biography</a>
<h2>Research & award details</h2>
<p><strong>Name: </strong>multi fulltext example</p>
<p><strong>Research Interests: </strong>Higher education</p>
<p><strong>Awards: </strong>Degrees</p>
<!-- end formatter="text/other" for Content Type --></html>

Notes

If you use the T4 Title tag to create the title of the page, the T4 tag can be modified for fulltext pages to generate a unique Title tag for each fulltext page.

If your Page layout contains a Breadcrumb Navigation object, the object can be configured to include the fulltext content, instead of simply generating a path to the Section Section.

This is used in Content Layouts to format Image elements (not to be confused with Media).

Attributes

Example

<t4 type="content" name="element-name" output="image" />

The output would be:

<img src="/mysite/name-of-image-file.jpg" />

This is used in Content type layouts to output the URL of Image elements (not to be confused with Media).

Attributes

Example

<t4 type="content" name="the-image" output="imageurl" max-width="55" max-height="44" />

The output would be:

/mysite/name-of-image-file-55x15.jpg

Used to output a path to an Image or File element.

<t4 type="content" name="element" output="file" />

The output would be:

/mysite/name-of-file.jpg

The output of Content Links to this Content Item would be an anchor link to the Content Item on the page (as opposed to the download output that links directly to the file):

<a href="/mysite/#d.en.36301">my content link text</a>

It is not possible to create this T4 Tag through the T4 Tag Builder. To create this tag, build the tag using the file output, and manually change the output in the T4 Tag.

This is used to output the path to an Image or File element. Any links to the Content Item that contains a T4 Tag that uses output="download" will link directly to the file.

This can be useful if the Content Type is used to upload documents. Links would output the direct path to the document rather than link to the page anchor that contains the link.

<t4 type="content" name="element" output="download" />

The output would be:

/mysite/name-of-file.jpg

The output of Content Links to this Content Item would be to the file (as opposed to the file output that links to an anchor on the page):

<a href="/mysite/name-of-file.jpg">my content link text</a>

Fix URL (type="fix-url")

The Fix URL tag checks URLs within a specified Element in a Content Type and prepends http:// to it, as necessary, when published. This is used for Content Types which contain an Element for users to enter a URL. 

The tag does not output the element, so you must also use the normal t4 tag to output the element.

There is a single required attribute, element, the name of the Content Type Element to be checked and updated.

Example:

<t4 type="fix-url" element="External URL" />

Tag output: Metadata (type="meta")

These meta tags are generated for the specific Content Item in the content tab of the tag builder. Please note that under the meta tags tab in the page layout tag builder, further meta tag outputs are available.

<t4 type="meta" meta="recently_modified" threshold="2" text="<t4 type=&quot;media&quot; id=&quot;5&quot; /> NEW: " />

In the example above, where content was modified within the last 2 days (48 hours), this tag would output a media item (media id 5) and text. Notice how quote symbols within the text attribute are changed to &quot; to escape them.

T4 tags: Media (type="media")

Last Modified:

20 Dec 2024

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Available from the Content Type and Page Layout tag builder. The "media" tag type is used for outputting content from the Media library, and to add Media attributes within the Media content layout.

Outputting content from the Media Library

The tag can be used within Content Types, Page Layouts, CSS and JavaScript files.

When you use it for a Content Type, it does not allow a user to select a file from the Media Library in content, but rather insert a media file (image, file) into the Content Type Layout.

Example media tag generated from the tag builder

<t4 type="media" formatter="image/*" id="10" />

In the T4 Tag, the type is "media", the id is the media file's id and the formatter is the Media Layout to be used (a Content Type Layout on the Media Content Type).

Media attributes within the Media Content Layout

Media Attributes can be used within the Media Content Type Layout to allow an end-user to specify further information about the Media Item or override values populated within the Media Library when using Media in an HTML element.

As an example, the default alt text could be the Description from the Media Library. This would be with the option to define a different alt text for a particular instance of the Media through a Media attribute. Another example might be that the default text for linking to File Media is the Name element, but with the option to define a different link text for this particular instance of the Media through a Media attribute.

Standard attributes

There are four standard attributes used with media located in the Media library. These attributes all have a default value, defined in the Media Library and users can modify them for their particular instances of the media if they have been configured to allow it. This could be used to resize images or change the text used to link to file Media.

User-defined attributes

Additional Media attributes can be set by inserting the T4 tag into the Media Content layout. These Media attributes are optional for users and are blank by default.

Do not rename User Defined Media attributes after content has been added using these attributes. Renaming the attributes can cause loss of data

Attributes

The following are specified:

Examples

Allow users to specify a different alt text

The alt text for image media is populated with the Description from the Media library (in a standard installation). This does allow users to specify a different alt text for this instance of the media. NOTE: this does not update the Description in the Media library.

In this example, the editable attribute is not specified, and therefore the default value of true is assumed, making it editable by users.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />" alt="<t4 type="media" attribute="description" />" />

Do not allow users to specify a different alt text

The alt text for image media is populated with the Description from the Media library making users unable to modify this when editing media attributes.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />" alt="<t4 type="media" attribute="description" editable="false" />" />

Allow users to resize images

The width and height for image media is populated by the size of the image within the Media library. Users are able to resize the image in the editor by specifying an alternative height or width, or both.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />" alt="<t4 type="media" attribute="description" />" style="height: <t4 type="media" attribute="height" editable="true" />px; width: <t4 type="media" attribute="width" editable="true" />px;" />

The following code is generated when a user enters a height of 80px and a width of 40px. As a result, file name of the image is changed because the published file is resized to different dimensions.

<img src="/media/images/myimages/myimage-40x80.jpg" alt="a resized image" style="height: 80px; width: 40px;" />

By default, the size of the published image file on the server is resized during publish and is not resized purely by the browser.

From 8.4.0 you can add the attribute client-resize="true" to File elements to ensure that the Publish engine does not resize the image and instead leaves the resizing to be done by the browser client-side.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" client-resize="true" />" alt="<t4 type="media" attribute="description" />" style="height: <t4 type="media" attribute="height" editable="true" />px; width: <t4 type="media" attribute="width" editable="true" />px;" />

Allow users to specify a class for an image

A user defined attribute can be added to allow users to specify an optional class for an image. When modifying Media attributes, users have the option for class where they can type the required class. If this is not specified, the default value would be blank.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />" alt="<t4 type="media" attribute="description" />" style="height: <t4 type="media" attribute="height" editable="true" />px; width: <t4 type="media" attribute="width"editable="true"/>px;" class="<t4 type="media" attribute="class" />" />

Allow users to specify the link text used for a file

When file media (such as, PDFs and Word Documents) are inserted into the WYSIWYG, the text used to link to the file is populated by the Name in the Media library (default installation), but users can modify the link text by editing Media attributes.

<a href="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />"><t4 type="media" attribute="name" editable="true" /></a> (<t4 type="meta" name="Media" meta="filesize" />kB)

Allow users to output media attributes as text

A user defines the attributes which they want to be output as text, in this case, the height and width of the image. They also need to add a format tag that formats the text being output; adding $value outputs the value of the selected attribute. When there is no value for that attribute, nothing is output.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />" alt="<t4 type="media" attribute="description" />" <br /> <t4 type="media" attribute="height" format="Height: $value " /> <br /> <t4 type="media" attribute="width" format="width: $value" />

T4 tags: Metadata (type="meta")

Last Modified:

30 Apr 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Available from the Page Layout tag builder. This creates tags based on the settings that have been configured under Assets > Metadata.

There is also a T4 Meta tag for use with Content Types.

The tag is as follows:

<t4 type="meta" id="19" />

This generates the full meta tag on the page. As an example:

<meta name="keywords" content="web content management system, cms, wcms, website content management, mobile" />

To output just the "content" of the meta tag, use a Section META Info navigation object.

List values and names

If the special Metadata Mappings are mapped to List Elements, the Meta T4 tag can specify whether to use the Value or Name of the List entry by using the display_field attribute:

<t4 type="meta" ID="5" display_field="name" />

OR

<t4 type="meta" ID="5" display_field="value" />

This effects the three separate List content elements in the following way:

• Cascading List: The list entry value is displayed by default. So if the attribute is missing, the value is published. i.e. the value is published in all cases except when display_field="name" is added.
• Multiple Select: The list entry value is displayed by default. So if the attribute is missing, the value is published. i.e. the value is published in all cases except when display_field="name" is added.
• Multi-select List: The list entry name is displayed by default. This is in keeping with how this content element is currently published, and the default does not change for backwards compatibility reasons.

Sections with Fulltext Content

Where sections contain Fulltext content, the T4 Meta tag can be configured to determine whether the Metadata entered in Fulltext content is displayed on the index page by using the output_to_index or include_content_on_index attributes. In all cases the fulltext page contains the section metadata and the metadata for this particular Content Item. The fulltext page does not include meta information added for other Content Items in the same section.

The output_to_index attribute can be added to the T4 tag with a value of either true or false. For example:

<t4 type="meta" ID="5" output_to_index="false" />

If set to false, the index page does not include any meta data tag. The fulltext page contains the section metadata and the metadata for this particular Content Item. The fulltext page does not include meta information added for other Content Items in the same section.

If set to true, or left blank, the index page includes section metadata and metadata for all content within the section. The fulltext page contains the section metadata and the metadata for this particular Content Item. The fulltext page does not include meta information added for other Content Items in the same section.

The include_content_on_index attribute can be added to the T4 tag with a value of either true or false. For example:

<t4 type="meta" ID="5" include_content_on_index="false" />

If set to false, the index page only includes section metadata and does not include any content metadata. The fulltext page contains the section metadata and the metadata for this particular Content Item. It does not include meta information added for other Content Items in the same section.

If set to true, or left blank, the index page includes section metadata and metadata for all content within the section. The fulltext page contains the section metadata and the metadata for this particular Content Item. It does not include meta information added for other Content Items in the same section.

The output_to_index overrides the include_content_on_index tag, so, if you set output_to_index to false and the include_content_on_index to true the meta tag is not generated on the index page.

T4 tags: Navigation (type="navigation")

Last Modified:

30 Apr 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Available from the Content Type and Page Layout tag builder this tag outputs information specified in a Navigation Object.

Navigation tags can be used in Content Layouts, Page Layouts or a Content Item (within a plain text element). Some types of Navigation Objects have restrictions around where and how they can be used, and these are detailed on each separate page about each type of Navigation Object.

Navigation Objects can also be used within List Values, allowing a content author to select an item from a List, determining which Navigation Object is output onto the page. Or, they can be used within Media Items (e.g. JSON files), if the Media Type is configured to parse for T4 tags.

While Navigation Objects work within List Values and Media, this is not intended functionality and is not routinely tested. In addition, Navigation Objects that are used within Lists or Media are not recorded in the Navigation Usage Report. While this approach can be used, it should be used with caution.

Example

<t4 type="navigation" name="A-Z Site Map" id="34" />

T4 Tags: Channel (type="channel")

Last Modified:

08 Dec 2021

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Available from the Page Layout T4 Tag builder but these tags can also be used in Content Layouts.

T4 tags: Access control

Last Modified:

30 Apr 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

When implementing access control on the published site, the T4 tag that is used to output the list of groups that have access to a section is:

<t4 type="accesscontrol" output="groupnames" />

This will output a comma-separated list of the names of groups that have access to that section.

This tag only works within the access control configuration code, for Group select content elements.

T4 tags: Format dates

Last Modified:

21 Mar 2023

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Format dates

You can format Meta dates and date elements in the Content Layout. With no date formatting, a default date format will be used.

To format the date of content type elements use the attribute date_format. 
To format the date of meta tags use format. 

When selecting dates/times in the Generate T4 Tag you can choose from the following options:

Custom formats can be created based on the following:

Examples

The date 22 January 13 or 9 January 13

<t4 date_format="d MMMM yy" type="content" name="the date" output="normal" modifiers="" />

 The date 22 January 2013 or 9 January 2013

<t4 type="content" date_format="d MMMM yyyy" name="the date" output="normal" modifiers="" />

The date 22 01 2013 or 09 01 2013

<t4 type="content" date_format="d MM yy" name="the date" output="normal" modifiers="" />

The date Friday, Mar. 21. 2014:

<t4 type="content" date_format="EEEE, MMM. d. yyyy" name="the date" output="normal" modifiers="" />

The date Last Modified 22 01 2013

<t4 type="meta" format="d MM yyyy" meta="last modified" />

Dates in multiple language sites

The locale attributes must be added manually to the tags. The date_format attribute outputs the date in the relevant language so an English page uses the English month names, and for a French page it uses the French month names.

Example tag using the locale:

<t4 type="content" name="Date Released" output="normal" modifiers="" date_format="d MMMM yyyy" locale="fr" locale_es="en" />

T4 Tags: Misc

Last Modified:

25 Apr 2023

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Available from the Content Type and Page Layout tag builder.

Title (type="title")

<t4 type="title" />

The T4 title tag is most frequently placed within the <title> and </title> fields in a Page Layout. When a channel is published, the tag is replaced with the name of the current section as specified within the Site Structure.

Optional attributes

There are additional attributes you can add to this T4 tag. They enable an element from within a Content Item to be appended to the page title on "fulltext" pages.

Standard example

<title>Sample Company Website - <t4 type="title" /></title>

<title><t4 type="title" title="Sample Company Website - " /></title>

If the current section name is "Services" then the output based on the previous two examples will be

<title>Sample Company Website - Services</title>

Fulltext example using optional attributes

<t4 type="title" append-content="true" append-element="Title" separator=":- " />

In the example above, "append-content" is set to true so on fulltext pages, information about the content should be appended to the page title.

The "append-element" attribute is set to "Title" so the content of the "Title" element will be output. If the "append-element" attribute is not specified, the "name" of the content is used.

Image, media, file and Section links cannot be mapped

The "separator" attribute has been set to ":- " so the standard title and the content specific information is separated by ":- ". If not specified, the default value for this attribute is ": ".

Title on index (type="title-on-index")

This is used on Page Layouts only and shows the name of the section on the index page but not on the fulltext page. This is displayed on preview and on publish.

Standard example

<t4 type="title-on-index" />

Before and after code example

<t4 type="title-on-index" before="<h2>" after="</h2>" />

Edit page (type="edit-page")

The "edit-page" T4 tag is used to create a link on a page of your site, to edit the content within TERMINALFOUR.

For the edit-page T4 tag to work, the context_url configuration option needs to be set.

Attributes

Examples

Link to create content

<t4 type="edit-page" action="add" text="add/create" />

Link to edit content

<t4 type="edit-page" action="modify" text="modify/edit" />

Link to edit content with Direct Edit

<t4 type="edit-page" action="direct-edit" text="edit with direct edit" />

Social poster

Last Modified:

14 Dec 2018

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0 and up

Description

The Social Poster Tag triggers TERMINALFOUR to post the content to the relevant social media account through the Social poster.

• Attributes
• Example tags
  • Twitter example
  • Facebook example
  • LinkedIn example

The link is generated from where the tag is placed, for example if the tag is in the text/html, the link will be to the section. It is recommended to place the t4 tag in the text/fulltext content layout so the link is generated to the full content.

<t4 type ="social" post_element="Tweet" account_identifier="Twitter" base_url="http://www.mywebsite.com" resource="https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/update.json" post_type="post" expires="12" />

Attributes

Example tags

Twitter example

<t4 type="social" post_element="Post Text" account_identifier="Twitter" base_url="http://www.baseurl.com" resource="https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/update.json" post_type="post" expires="12" />

Facebook example

<t4 type="social" post_element="Post Text" account_identifier="Facebook" base_url="http://www.baseurl.com" resource="https://graph.facebook.com/321844344589231/feed" post_type="post" expires="12" />

LinkedIn example

<t4 type="social" post_element="Post Text" account_identifier="LinkedIn" base_url="http://www.baseurl.com" resource="http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/~/shares" post_type="post" expires="12" />

T4 Tags outside the tag builder

Last Modified:

03 Apr 2020

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0 and up

Description

These are tags that can be used that are not available from the Content Type and Page Layout tag builder.

Language variable tag (type="lang-var")

The Language variable tag allows you to provide text for different languages within Page Layouts and Content Layouts.

Example

Use of this code results in the following output on the published site:

• On English pages output: "English String"
• On German pages output: "German String"
• On French pages output: "French String"
• On other pages so default language output is used: "English String"

<t4 type="lang-var" default-language="en" en="English String" de="German String" fr="French String" />

Example with other t4 tags

It is possible to use other T4 tags within the Language variable tag. To do this the "process-format" attribute must be set to true and the quote symbols in the nested t4 tag must be replaced with &quot; . For example:

<t4 type="lang-var" default-language="en" process-format="true" format-modifiers="" en="<li><t4 type=&quot;navigation&quot; id=&quot;15&quot; /></li>" es="<li><t4 type=&quot;navigation&quot; id=&quot;16&quot; /></li>" ar="<li><t4 type=&quot;navigation&quot; id=&quot;17&quot; /></li>" />

Secondary publish (type="warning")

The tag is useful on multiple language sites and publishes a language disclaimer when Secondary Publish is in use on a Channel. In this case, a disclaimer will be generated for content that has not been translated into a secondary language.

The text for the disclaimer can be added at both the Channel and Language level. If a disclaimer for a language appears in both Channel and Language level, the Channel disclaimer is used.

The examples are based on a Channel with the following languages: 

• English is set to Publish, is the Default language and Secondary Publish is active
• German is set to Publish

If content exists in English and it has not been translated in German then a T4 Tag can be used to publish the disclaimer on the German page alongside the English content. The T4 Tag can either be added to the Page Layout or to the Content Layouts. The difference between the two is the logic used to see if any output is necessary:

• T4 Tag in Page Layout: will print the disclaimer if any content in the Section is taken from the Secondary publish language. 
• T4 Tag in Content Layout: will print, on a per content basis, if that Content Item is taken from the Secondary publish language (which may result in multiple disclaimers on the page, if there are multiple Content Items that are not translated).

Example tag added to a Page Layout

<t4 type="warning" output="lang_disclosure_style" />

This will be published on the German (Not translated) page, either before all content or after all content:

<p>Keine deutschsprachigen Inhalte hier</p>

Example tag added to a Content Layout

<t4 type="warning" output="lang_disclosure_template" />

This will be published on the German (Not translated) page for each Content Item using a Content Type where the tag is added to the Content Layout:

<p>Keine deutschsprachigen Inhalte hier</p>

Ancestor or Parent name (type="parentnames")

This tag can be added to a Page Layout or Content Layout and outputs the name(s) of the parent section(s). It can generate the name of one section (for example the parent section), or a breadcrumb-style format which generates the name of multiple ancestors (for example the grandparent and parent sections).

This is an extra Add On to TERMINALFOUR and hence may not be enabled in your TERMINALFOUR. Please contact Client Support to install this for you if you do not have access to your database.

Enable the Ancestor Broker

To enable the Ancestor Broker, the below sql statement will have to be entered in the database:

insert into sm_brokers values ('com.terminalfour.publish.brokers.AncestorBroker', 1);

Configure the Ancestor Broker

The following configuration options are required. For each of these, a default value is specified. If the field is not specified within the tag, or if the value entered does not match the expected value, then the default is used.

Examples

The following T4 tags can be added to a Page Layout or Content Layout:

Output the name of the parent section

<t4 type="parentnames" separator="" start-level="1" number-of-levels="1" first-child="false" first-content="false" empty-section="false" />

or it could be formatted without the unnecessary attributes:

<t4 type="parentnames" separator="" start-level="1" number-of-levels="1" />

Output the name of the current section

<t4 type="parentnames" separator="" start-level="0" number-of-levels="1" first-child="false" first-content="false" empty-section="false" />

or it could be formatted without the unnecessary attributes:

<t4 type="parentnames" separator="" number-of-levels="1" />

Output the name of the parent section and current section, for the first Content Item on a page

Add the following T4 tag to content layout for one or more content types:

<t4 type="parentnames" separator=" > " start-level="0" number-of-levels="2" first-child="false" first-content="true" empty-section="false" />

or it could be formatted without the unnecessary attributes:

<t4 type="parentnames" separator=" : " number-of-levels="2" first-content="true" />

This will generate an output similar to Name of Parent Section : Name of Current Section if the Content Item is the first Content Item on the page.

Output a separator text which includes a quote symbol

Similar to the selective output tag, if you need to output a quote symbol as part of the separator text, then it needs to be changed to &quot;. For example:

<t4 type="parentnames" separator=" <span class=&quot;separator&quot;>:</span> " start-level="0" number-of-levels="2" />

This will generate an output similar to

Name of Parent Section <span class="separator">:</span> Name of Current Section

Output a different separator text in different languages

For multiple language sites, the language variable tag is used to specify different text in different languages. This can be used within the separator tag as follows:

<t4 type="parentnames" separator=" <t4 type="lang-var" default-language="en" en=" is the parent of " ga=" mar tuismitheoir do " /> " start-level="0" number-of-levels="2" />

In English this will generate an output similar to:

Name of Parent Section is the parent of Name of Current Section

In Gaeilge this will generate an output similar to:

Name of Parent Section mar tuismitheoir do Name of Current Section

Server-side Link (type="sslink")

The Server-side link tag is used for generation of section and content links and should not be changed manually.

Incorporate content from databases, RSS feeds and other web pages

Last Modified:

20 Mar 2023

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0 and up

Description

With Data Objects, Web Objects and the import-url tag you can use content which is maintained outside of Terminalfour in Terminalfour published pages.

Since the Data Object connects to the data source and retrieves content on each publish, you may see an increase in publish duration. Based on your requirements, you should consider the External Content Syncer or Packages when retrieving large amounts of content from external sources.

However, if your license is limited by content item number, the Content Syncer will import content items into Terminalfour which will increase your content count. The Data Object does not import content items into Terminalfour since content is retrieved and added to the page on publish and so does not add to your content count.

There's more than one way to integrate external data in Terminalfour and the method you choose can depend on the type of data and what you want to do with it.

1. Database content can be included using the Data Object for databases
2. RSS content can be included using the Data Object for RSS feeds
3. Web content from multiple pages (http and https) can be included using the Web object
4. Web content from one page (http and https) can be included using the Import URL tag

Data Object for Databases

The Data Object connects to an external database each time the site publishes. On publish, the content is pulled from the database and inserted into the HTML of the published page. The presentation of the content can be controlled within the Content Layouts.

For security reasons, the password to the external database is not configured in the Data Object tag, but rather in the Data Object configuration.

Configuration options

A Data Object T4 tag is added to a Content Layout and content is added to the site using the Content Type. The following configuration options are available on the T4 tag (a * indicates that it is required):

Example Data Object Tag

<t4 type="data-obj" method="jdbc" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" db-url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/external_db" username="dbusername" table-name="company,countries" column-names="company.id, company.name, price, email_address, department, telephone, countries.name" where="where price = $template.price$ and countries.id = company.country" formatter="text/output" />

Using a "where" Statement

The "where" option in the Data Object tag is not required and is used, as in a SQL query, to return only data that matches defined criteria.

An example would be:

where="where faculty = 'Science' and countries.id = company.country"

If you would like each Content Item using the Data Object Content Type to display different results, you can apply different criteria to the same Content Element for each Content Item.

For example, if you wanted a Content Item to display all data where the faculty is "Science". Add "Science" to the "Faculty" element in the Content Item then change the "where" option in the Data Object tag to reference the "Faculty" Content Element as $template.Faculty$. This would read as follows:

where="where faculty=$template.Faculty$"

You could also use the same Content Type to publish two Content Items to output the results from both the "Science" and "Humanities" faculties by changing the value in the "Faculty" Content Element.

Using a "sql" attribute

Rather than specifying the table name, columns names and where clauses separately, it is possible to use the sql attribute to enter a full SQL statement. For example:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="jdbc" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" db-url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/external_db" username="dbusername" sql="select company.id, company.name, price, email_address, department, telephone, countries.name from company,countries where price = $template.price$ and countries.id = company.country" formatter="text/output" />

If you alias columns in your query, you must use the "as" statement; not just white-space.

Creating the Content Layout

To determine the Content Layout for the database query results when the site is published, you must specify the Content Layout that will be used. In your Data Object Content Type, you create a new Content Layout called "text/output" and set the "formatter" option in the Data Object tag to this name.

In the Content Layout, add the HTML to use with the data returned from the database query. You can then call the individually returned columns by putting the column name between two $ signs. An example of this would be:

<h1>$id$</h1>
<p>Name: $example.name$ <br />Email: $email_address$ <br />Dept: $department$<br /> Tel: $telephone$ <br /> Price: $price$ <br /> Country: $countries.name$ </p>

This layout can contain other T4 Tags and HTML code. If the Content Layout for the database content contains $ symbols (e.g. PHP code) then it is possible to specify a different character to be used in order to identify the database fields in the Data Object. An example tag would be:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="jdbc" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" db-url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/external_db" username="dbusername" table-name="company,countries" column-names="company.id, company.name, price, email_address, department, telephone, countries.name" where="where price = $template.price$ and countries.id = company.country" elem-ident-char="+" formatter="text/output" />

in which case the "text/output" Content Layout would be:

<h1>+id+</h1>
<p>Name: +example.name+ <br />Email: +email_address+ <br />Dept: +department+<br /> Tel: +telephone+ <br /> Price: +price+ <br /> Country: +countries.name+ </p>

Restrict the number of items displayed

If a database query contains a number of records, and you only want to display the first few records, the Data Object tag can restrict the number of items, max-number="x"

An example tag would be:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="jdbc" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" db-url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/external_db" username="dbusername" table-name="company,countries" column-names="company.id, company.name, price, email_address, department, telephone, countries.name" where="where price = $template.price$ and countries.id = company.country" max-number="3" formatter="text/output" />

The maximum value can also come from a Content Element. An example tag, assuming a Content Element called Number, would be:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="jdbc" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" db-url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/external_db" username="dbusername" table-name="company,countries" column-names="company.id, company.name, price, email_address, department, telephone, countries.name" where="where price = $template.price$ and countries.id = company.country" max-number="$template.Number$" formatter="text/output" />

Ordering results

Results can be ordered by a column name. For example, to order by a column named "Company Name" you would add order=”Order by company.name”:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="jdbc" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" db-url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/external_db" username="dbusername" table-name="company,countries" column-names="company.id, company.name, price, email_address, department, telephone, countries.name" where="where price = $template.price$ and countries.id = company.country ORDER BY company.name" formatter="text/output" />

Database Drivers

The driver for the database used by your TERMINALFOUR application (MySQL/MS SQL Server/Oracle) will already be installed. Drivers for other databases will require a separate install in order to sync with them.

To install other drivers, the driver (JAR file) should be accessible to the TERMINALFOUR application i.e., included in the TERMINALFOUR application's classpath. For example, the JAR file could be placed in the Tomcat's lib directory, or another location that is referenced by the Tomcat server.xml configuration file.

For further assistance, please discuss this with your TERMINALFOUR server administrator or contact our support team.

Data Object for RSS

The Data Object connects to an RSS feed each time the site publishes. On publish, the content is taken from the RSS feed and embedded within the HTML of the published page. The presentation of the content can be controlled within the Content Layouts.

Configuration options

A Data Object T4 tag is added to a Content Layout and then content is added to the site using the Content Type. The following configuration options are available on the T4 tag (a * indicates that it is required):

Example Data Object tag

<t4 type="data-obj" method="rss" rss-url="$template.url$" for-each="item" formatter="text/output" />

Configuring the rss-url option

The "rss-url" option should be set to the URL of the RSS feed to be accessed. This can be achieved in one of two ways.

Setting the URL in the Content Layout. This can be used if you would like each Content Item added using the Data Object Content Type to show the same RSS feed. It would look similar to the following:

rss-url="http://www.terminalfour.com/rss/news.xml"

If you would like each Content Item added using the Data Object Content Type to display a different RSS Feed, you can add an element to the Data Object Content Type called "url" and then change the rss-url option in the tag to be similar to the example below. Then when you add content to a Section, you can enter the URL of the feed into the "url" element.

rss-url="$template.url$"

Configuring the "for-each" option

The "for-each" option is related to the parent tag of the information you wish to retrieve. If you look at the following extract from an RSS feed, you can see in this case it is called "item":

<channel>
<title>TERMINALFOUR News</title>
<item>
<title>The Genie is out of the bottle, and at your service - a glimpse into the future</title>
<link>http://www.terminalfour.com/news/</link>
<description>The Genie is out of the bottle, and at your service - a glimpse into the future of student support.  In a future not too far away, students are all going to have personal assistants. That's if Deakin University's Genie app is anything to go by.</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>How is Artificial Intelligence revolutionizing HigherEd digital marketing?</title>
<link>http://www.terminalfour.com/news/</link>
<description>Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the technology of the moment. And rightly so, as AI has started to sweep through industries and disrupt them. And it’s not stopping at the front gates of Universities and Colleges.</description>
</item>
</channel>

Creating the Content Layout

To determine the layout of the RSS feed information for the published site, you need to specify a Content Layout to be used. In your Data Object Content Type, create a Content Layout called "text/output" and set the formatter option in the Data Object tag to this name as in the tag example earlier. In this Content Layout, you can create the HTML code you want to wrap around the data in the RSS feed. You can then call the individual tags by putting the tag name between two $ signs. An example would be:

<h2>$title$</h2>
<p>Link: $link$</p>
<p>Description: $description$</p>

Output an attribute of a tag

If you would like to output a tag's attribute value, you write this as $nodeName.attribute[attribute_name]$ in the Content Layout, and it will output the attribute value instead of the node's text.

Example:

<entrance type="main" disabled_access="true" id="1">
<place>
<id>53.405750424917244</id>
<number>-2.9651740193367004</number>
</place>
</entrance>

So, using the example above, if $entrance.attribute[disabled_access]$ is found in the Content Layout, the value "true" will be output on publish.

Restrict the number of items displayed

If an RSS feed includes 10 items, but you only want to publish the top 3, the Data Object tag can restrict the number of items.

An example tag would be:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="rss" rss-url="$template.url$" for-each="item" max-number="3" formatter="text/output" />

The maximum value can also come from a content type element. An example tag, assuming a content type element called Number, would be:

<t4 type="data-obj" method="rss" rss-url="$template.url$" for-each="item" max-number="$template.Number$" formatter="text/output" />

Web Object

A Web Object is a broker similar to the Import URL Broker; however, the Web Object can be configured to follow links on the target URL to the linked web pages too. Each time the site publishes, the content is taken from an http or https location and embedded within the HTML of the published page.

You generate a Web Object in one of two ways:

• Using a standard URL
  • the same URL is used for all instances of the Web Object
• Using a custom URL
  • different URLs are used for different instances of the Web Object, depending on input from the user creating content

Configuration Options

A Web Object T4 tag is added to a Content Layout and then content is added to the site using the Content Type. The following configuration options are available on the T4 tag (a * indicates that it is required):

Use of a standard URL

Create a Content Type; it does not require any additional elements to be added, so the only element is Name. Add a Web Object tag to the Content Layout, and then add content to the site using the Content Type.

In the Content Layout, apply the following code:

<t4 type="web-obj"
method="http"
start-url="http://www.terminalfour.com"
link-match="/careers"
link-match-import-method="subsection"
parse-body="true"
/>

After the Content Type has been enabled, you can add content and publish the Channel as normal.

Use of a custom URL

The following example demonstrates a Web Object which is pointed at a person profile management system to output the person details in HTML. The individual person's details can then be published as part of the TERMINALFOUR published page. 

The URL for the person profile management system contains a variable for the person's email address:

https://my.othersite.com/here/PEOPLE_SHOW.SHOW_PEOPLE?email=mary.smith@mysite.com will display the details for Mary Smith

https://my.othersite.com/here/PEOPLE_SHOW.SHOW_PEOPLE?email=john.smith@mysite.com will display the details for John Smith

The start-url requires a variable for end users to be able to specify the email address of the person when adding content using the Web object Content type.

Create a Content Type. In this example, the Content Type requires one element to store the email address, called "staffemail".

In the Content Layout, apply the following code:

<t4 type="web-obj"
method="http"
start-url="https://my.othersite.com/here/PEOPLE_SHOW.SHOW_PEOPLE?email=$template.staffemail$"
link-match="PEOPLE_SHOW.SHOW"
link-match-import-method="subsection"
parse-body="true"
/>

Add content using the new Content Type. Enter "john.smith@mysite.com" in the element "staffemail" and update the content. Then, add an additional Content Item and enter "mary.smith@mysite.com" into the element "staffemail". Publish the Channel as normal.

The above example replaces the $template.staffemail$ value with the entry in the content's "staffemail" element (mary.smith@mysite.com).

On publish, TERMINALFOUR goes to the url https://my.othersite.com/here/PEOPLE_SHOW.SHOW_PEOPLE?email=mary.smith@mysite.com and makes a copy of the content within the body tags for that page and inserts them into the TERMINALFOUR published page.

The start-url can contain T4 tags. The quote symbols in the T4 tag need to be single quotes ( ' ), as in this example:

start-url="https://my.othersite.com/here/PEOPLE_SHOW.SHOW_PEOPLE?lang=<t4 type='lang-var' default-language='en' en='en' fr='fr'/>"

Import URL

The Import URL T4 Tag allows content to be taken from a web page (http or https) and to be added to the HTML of the published page. To follow links on the specified page and import multiple pages, use a Web Object.

The Import URL tag is added to a Content Layout and then content is added to the site using the Content Type. There are two options for the configuration of the target URL:

Example Using the URL Attribute

If the following T4 Tag is inserted into a Content Layout, it connects to http://www.terminalfour.com/, reads the page content and includes it in the TERMINALFOUR published page.

<t4 type="import-url" url="http://www.terminalfour.com" />

Example Using the element Attribute

If the following T4 Tag is inserted into a Content Layout, it connects to the URL specified in the "external link" element, reads the page content and includes it in the TERMINALFOUR published page.

<t4 type="import-url" element="external link" />

Include content from a PDF file on a page

Last Modified:

12 Mar 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0 and up

Description

This tag, type="pdfdoc" is added to a Content Layout. It takes a given file element, checks to see if it is a PDF document and uses the "output" attribute to determine how the PDF should appear on the published page.

The file name of the PDF document should not contain spaces.

Potential usage scenarios

1. Display a PDF within an iframe on a Content Item.
2. Allow the content of the PDF to be extracted and published on a page so that it can be used for search indexing.

Content Type

Create a content type with a file element (not a media element). Add the tag to a Content Layout. Create content using the Content Type and publish. There are three options for the tag.

Embed

The "embed" option will upload the file in the normal way, output code pointing at the uploaded file, embedding the file on the published page. The PDF file can be viewed in a PDF reader like Adobe reader. If no reader is installed in the browser, a link to the PDF will be provided instead. This publishes the PDF document in the same directory as the published page.

<t4 type="pdfdoc" output="embed" name="file-element-name" />

<iframe height="100%" width="98%" frameborder="0" src="/include-content-from-a-pdf-file/sample.pdf" align="center"><a href="/include-content-from-a-pdf-file/sample.pdf">sample.pdf</a></iframe>

Hidden - with the file

The "hidden-file" option will read the contents of the PDF document and then output it inside a hidden div on the published page. This publishes the PDF document in the same directory as the published page.

<t4 type="pdfdoc" output="hidden-file" name="file-element-name" />

<div class="hidden-div" style="display:none;">Content from PDF Document</div>

Hidden - without the file

The "hidden-no-file" option will read the contents of the PDF document and then output it inside a hidden div on the published page. This does not publish the PDF document.

<t4 type="pdfdoc" output="hidden-no-file" name="file-element-name" />

<div class="hidden-div" style="display:none;">Content from PDF Document</div>

Notes

1. If the file is not a PDF document nothing will be output.
2. The element referenced must be a file content element.
3. The tag can only be used in Content Layout.
4. If hidden-no-file is used in conjunction with either embed or hidden-file then the option will be overridden and the PDF document will be published in same directory as the published page.
5. If both embed and either hidden-file or hidden-no-file are specified, the PDF will be both embedded on the page and added to a hidden div.
6. If both hidden-file and hidden-no-file are specified, the PDF will be both embedded on the page and added to a hidden div.
7. The iFrame created is a set width and can't be changed.
8. The div created can't be changed unless css is used to set it to be displayed.
9. The line breaks from PDF file are ignored when published on the page.

T4 tags: Convert Excel to HTML

Last Modified:

22 May 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0 and up

Description

This tag takes an Excel spreadsheet in the Media Library and publishes the data within that file as an HTML table on the page. The Excel to HTML tag is added to a Content Layout (to create the table) and to a Page Layout (to format the table) and content is added to the site using the Content Type.

There's more than one way to integrate external data in TERMINALFOUR and the method you choose can depend on the type of data and what you want to do with it.

Content Layout tag

For the example we are using a very basic spreadsheet:

Create a Content Type with a media element. In the Content Layout, add the tag. There are two attributes for this tag:

Examples

<t4 type="exceltohtml" name="media-file" />

<t4 type="exceltohtml" name="media-file" output-sheet-name="true" />

The output generated would be:

<div id="excel-285-media-file">
<div id="table-285-1-media-file">
<table class="excel-285-media-t1">
<colgroup>
<col width="144">
<col width="144">
<col width="56">
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="excel-285-media-r1">
<td class="excel-285-media-c1">Fruit</td>
<td class="excel-285-media-c1">Vegetables</td>
<td class="excel-285-media-c1"> </td>
</tr>
<tr class="excel-285-media-r1">
<td>Apple</td><td>Parsnip</td>
</tr>
<tr class="excel-285-media-r1">
<td>Orange</td><td>Carrot</td>
</tr>
<tr class="excel-285-media-r1">
<td>Banana</td><td>Spinach</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>

Page Layout tag

A tag is added to the header of the Page Layout within the <style type="text/css"> tag in the header.

Example

<style type="text/css">
<t4 type="exceltohtml" name="media-file" default-font="font-family:arial;font-size:8pt;" sheet-numbers-element="Sheet Numbers" />
</style>

<style type="text/css">
.b1{white-space-collapsing:preserve;}
.excel-285-media-t1{border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;}
.excel-285-media-r1{height:14.5pt;}
.excel-285-media-c1{white-space: pre-wrap; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom; font-weight: bold; color: black; font-family:arial;font-size:8pt; }
</style>

Notes

• If a title is in one cell in the Excel file, it appears in one cell in the HTML table. If you want a title to span over more than one column in the HTML table then cells must be merged in the Excel file.
• Rows merged in an Excel file can cause problems as there is no way to merge rows in a HTML table. The formatting of these rows must be corrected before they is displayed in the HTML correctly.

T4 tags: Appendix

Last Modified:

01 Feb 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Appendix

This is a listing of tags and the main attributes.

Type

Output

Other

Data Object Connection Settings

Last Modified:

16 Aug 2018

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

With Data Objects you can add content from external data sources to your pages simply by adding a T4 Tag to your Content Layout. External content is maintained outside of TERMINALFOUR, and can come from a variety of sources like RSS, CSV or through a JDBC database connection. While the Data Object is stored within the Content Layout, database connection settings such as authentication details are configured separately as an added security measure.

Configure the Data Object Database Connection

To create a new database connection for Data Objects, go to System Administration > Configure Integration Tools > Data Object and select the option to Create New Data Object. For each Data Object enter:

If you are satisfied with your inputs, then click Save Changes. Continue to configure the Data Object T4 Tag within the Content Layout.

Metadata

Last Modified:

14 Jan 2019

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.0+ and up Toggle Dropdown

8.2.3 and up

Description

Metadata mapping allows you to create map between Content type elements and Meta tags. This is done in a tabular form. This process publishes the value of content from the content type elements which are then output as HTML meta elements with the header of the HTML page.

You can map multiple elements from one, or multiple Content types in the same meta tag. Each tag is appended to the standard section metadata one at a time.

To access this system function, go to Assets > Metadata mappings‌‌.

It is not possible to map File and Image elements.There are two tabs on this page, Content element mappings, Configure meta tags. The Content element mappings tab also has a Filter function.

Content element mappingss

In the tab Content element mappings there is a tabular list of three columns - Name, Group, and the last column with blue Action buttons.

1. In the Name column you have a list of Content types each one linked. The link goes to the meta data mappings, where you can add a meta tag (see below). In some cases the name has a short description included. For each entry there is an ID number assigned to the content type. This ID number also appears in the name column. You can sort the groups using the "up/down" arrows in the column head. If the content type is already mapped to meta tags, a "Show/hide mappings" link appears.

2. The Group column contains the group assigned to the content type. You can sort the groups using the "up/down" arrows in the column head.

3. From the Actions button (see below) you can select to Edit mappings or Edit content type:

3a. If you click the Edit mappings - you are transferred to the mapping activity for that Content type name. In the example below the Content type name is Blog post - and the content type elements are: Name, Title, and MainBody. You then select an appropriate Meta tag for each element:

3b. If you click Edit content type - you are transferred to the General information tab of the corresponding Content type. Example shown below:

Configure meta tags

You can add a meta tag, select its configuration and specify an associated language with this feature. The Configure meta tags page is shown below.

To add a meta tag click the link marked Add a meta tag.  Then add the name of the meta tag e.g. DC.abstract.

In the Special mapping column, select whether the meta tag is automatically populated with the Page last modified or Page created date. The output value of these tags depends on the content within the section.

• Page last modified: the most recent last modified date of the content in the section is output
• Page created: the create date of the oldest Content Item is output

A date format is also required for these and should comply with the Java date pattern. An example format is YYYY-MM-dd.

In the Language Behaviour column, choose from three options:

• Normal: If a translation exists for the current language then use it. If no translation exists then output nothing.
• Default to other language: If no translation exists for the current language, then output the selected language's version instead.
• Override other language: Always use the selected language for the meta tag value.

If "Default to other language" or "Override other language" is selected, in the Language option, select a language from the drop-down list.

Repeat, or click Save changes.

Using meta tags

Meta tags can be output into the header of pages by using t4 tags within the header of Page Layouts. The values of meta tags (without the surrounding meta tag) can also be output in page layouts or content layouts using the Section meta info navigation object.

Page layout usage

Last Modified:

30 May 2019

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.0 and up

Description

With the Page Layout Usage Report, you can see the Page Layouts that are in use and where they are being used. This can be important to know if you need to change or delete a Page Layout, as it might be in use, and potentially in more than one place.

To use the Page Layout Usage report, go to Assets > Asset usage > Page layout usage.

Search tools

The report can be run on a specific Page Layout or Section / Branch.

Click Run report will display the search results.

Search results

Results matching the search will be displayed in the listing. For each item, the Section, Page Layout, Channel and Applied/Inherited will be displayed. Results can be sorted and filtered. 

Download as CSV

Click Download as CSV to download the results in a CSV file which can be opened in Excel.

Lists

Last Modified:

11 Nov 2021

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.3.11 and up

Description

A List is a collection of items with a meaningful grouping or sequence. When used as part of a Content Type, a List allows a user to select one or more of the items within it as an option. For example, if news articles on your site are categorized as "Sport", "Weather" and "Current Affairs", you would create a List with these three categories and add it to a "News Article" Content Type. When a news article is created, the user selects one (or more) of the categories.

Lists can also be used with selective output to apply a class to display or hide an HTML element such as a disclaimer.

When Are Lists Used?

We use Lists when we want to restrict the content items that can be input in a Content Type. In the example above, instead of leaving it to the user to input (and possibly misspell) text for a news category, the options are pre-defined for the user. List items can be added as needed by a user with the access rights to edit that List.

How Are Lists Used?

When a List has been created and populated it is added to a Content Type. There are six Content Elements types that can be used with Lists:

Who Can Create a List?

Administrators can create Lists which are accessible Globally or within a Group. Power Users can create Lists within their Group(s).

Power Users cannot create or modify Global Lists. They can only use Global Lists, or Lists in Groups to which they belong when creating Content Types.

List Listing Page

To work with Lists, go to Assets > Lists. All List names and descriptions that the user has rights to edit and/or view (i.e., Global Lists, and Lists that have been shared with the Power User's Group(s) as read-only) are listed in the table with the Asset ID and the Group that the List belongs to. If you have a lot of Lists, use the Filter box to filter by List name, description, ID or Group.

The columns in the table are Name, Group(s) and the Actions button:

Create New List

When you select Add New List the List Information screen is displayed:

List items

List items can be added below the List Information options.

Each row contains:

In this example, the List comprises university departments. Since "Biology" is the largest department, it is selected by default:

 We can also add Sublists – another existing List that you want to associate with this a List Item:

Re-ordering List Items

From version 8.3.11 you can re-order List Items. If you have upgraded from a previous version of Terminalour, all List Items will be ordered alphabetically. In previous versions, Items were ordered as entered and could not be re-ordered. 

Lists are alphabetically ordered by toggling "Enable automatic ordering" to on. Automatic ordering can order alphabetically A-Z or Z-A:

Add row

While "Automatic ordering" is enabled the "Add row" button can't be clicked. When "Automatic ordering" is disabled the alphabetic ordering is preserved and you can add a new row. Enable "Automatic ordering" again to re-order the List and the added Item(s) alphabetically.

Manually re-order List Items

To manually re-order List Items disable "Automatic ordering" and using the move handles in the Order column to move the item:

Manual re-ordering is disabled when a filter is applied to the List:

Using a List in a Content Type

In a new or existing Content Type, go to the Elements tab and select Add Element. Give the Element a name and set the Type to one of the Element Types that are used with Lists. In this example, Radio Button is selected. A drop-down menu will appear below from which you can select the List:

This example shows how the different List Content Elements behave in a Content Type. Since "Sport" has a Sublist, items from that Sublist can be selected in the Cascading and Multi-select List:

Share a List

Global Lists can be used by any Power User when creating a Content Type but can only be edited by Administrators. Power Users and Administrators can create Lists within groups or share Lists with other groups. The List can either be shared with Read-only or Full access:

• Read-only access: Power Users within the group can view the List but cannot edit it
• Full access: Power Users within the group can view and edit the List

Regardless of how the List is shared, all Power Users within the group can use the List within a Content Type.

A Global List cannot be shared with Groups; however, you can move a global List to a Group by Editing the List and selecting a Primary Group.

Duplicate a List

You can duplicate a List. Do this either into a new Group or the same Group or with other Groups. A duplicate List creates a copy of the original and the two Lists are not linked to each other.

Changes made to one List do not affect duplicated versions. Sharing and Duplication are two different functions.

Delete a List

In the row of the corresponding List, open the Actions drop-down list and select Delete.

A confirmation pop-up window appears and you can confirm your choice and Delete, or Cancel the action. Upon successful deletion, a green banner appears confirming the deletion, and the List is removed from the list.

When a List is deleted you cannot recover the data.

Automatically Mirror Content with a List

To mirror a Content Item to other parts of your site when it's approved you can use the Auto Content Mirroring feature. This will mirror content based on the value(s) selected from a Content Type's List element (an Auto Mirroring List).

With an Auto Mirroring List, the entries in the List element correspond to the Sections of your Site Structure. The List element is added to a Content Type that an end user uses to select the Section(s) that the Content Item will be mirrored to.

The Content Item is only mirrored when the source content is Approved. If the Content Item already exists in the designated Section or its parent Section, it will not be re-mirrored. If there a Workflow is used, the mirroring will take place when the final step in the Workflow has been completed.

In order to set up Auto Content Mirroring, you need to do the following:

1. Create a List
2. Add the List as an Element to a Content Type
3. Navigate to System administration > Hierarchy & content settings > Content
   1. Check the Enable auto mirroring of content option (if it is not already checked)
   2. For the List created above, check the Use as auto mirroring list option
   3. For each List value, select the Section that the Content Item will be mirrored to
4. Save changes
5. Add a Content Item using the Content Type and select an option from the List. Once the Content Item is approved, it will mirror into the relevant Section(s).

The content will mirror to the selected Sections in the List even if the person approving the Content Item does not have access to those Sections.

If the mirrored Content Item is deleted from a Section, the corresponding Content Element will be automatically updated, to reflect that the user has decided that the Content Item should no longer be mirrored there (i.e. the selected option will be de-selected).
If a user deselects a designated Section when modifying the source Content Item – in the case where the Content Item has already been mirrored – the mirrored Content Item will not be deleted.

If Sections are removed from the original List, Content Items which had been mirrored into those Sections will not be removed.

Disabling auto-mirroring for certain branches

It is possible to disable auto-mirroring when the source Content Item resides in certain Sections or Branches by configuring the Branch id's which disable auto mirroring option at System Administration > Hierarchy & Content Settings > Hierarchy.

Content type usage

Last Modified:

30 May 2019

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.0 and up

Description

The Content Type Usage Report lets you see the Content Types that are in use and where they are being used. This can be important to know if you need to change or delete a Content Type, as it may already be in use, and potentially in more than one place.

To use the Content Type Usage report, go to Assets > Asset usage > Content type usage.

Search tools

The report can be run on a specific Content Type or Section / Branch.

Click Run report to display the search results.

Search results

Results matching the search will be displayed. For each item, the following will be displayed. Results can be sorted and filtered. 

Download as CSV

Click Download as CSV to download the results in a CSV file that can be opened in Excel.

Media Content Type

Last Modified:

22 Mar 2022

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.0 and up

Description

The Media Content Type is a System Content Type. Since System Content Types are used by the Terminalfour system, they are pre-configured on installation. The Media Library uses this Content Type when an item is added or edited.

Media Types

When you add an item to the Media Library, you can select a Media Type from the drop-down list. A suitable option may be pre-selected based on the file extension of the Media Item, though this can be changed. The Media Type determines the settings for a Media Item based on its file extension. Settings include the maximum file size and whether it contains code that can be edited directly within the Media Library (like CSS and Javascript files).

When you are configuring a Media Type, one or more Media Content Layouts can be associated with it. Select Add row and choose it from the Media Content Layout dropdown list to add an existing Media Content Layout. When more than Media Content Layout is associated with a Media Type, a default can be selected:

The Default is the Media Content Layout that is used when a Media Item is selected from the HTML Editor.

Editing the Media Content Type

Since the Media Content Type is used by the system to add and edit Media Library items, edits to the Content Elements should only be carried by a database administrator. We would also recommend that back-ups should be taken ahead of making changes. 

Hosted Terminalfour clients can log a support ticket with Client Services who will be happy to make changes.

Making the "Description" field required 

On new installs of Terminalfour, the "Description" field is required. This is to ensure that users must add text that can be used to populate the "alt" attribute which improves accessibility on the published website.

If you are upgrading from an older version of Terminalfour the "Description" Content Element may not be a required field. To make this element required, the following SQL query can be run (only users with access to the query handler can run queries):

update template_element set compulsory="1" where template=xx and name="Description"

In this case, xx is the id of the Media Content Type (which is typically "1").

Media Content Layouts

A Media Content Layout is a Content Layout associated with the Media Content Type. You can view all Media Content Layouts by going to Assets > Content Types and filtering for the Media Content Type (this is a System Content Type)  It can be edited in the same way as any other Content Layout:

There are some Media Content Layouts that are pre-configured with a fresh install of TERMINALFOUR. These include:

If you have added custom Media Types, you may also have additional Content Layouts. To edit a Content Layout, select Edit on the Actions menu for the Content Layout.

Modifying a Media Content Layout will update the published versions of all Media Items using that Media Content Layout.

A Media Type can use one or more Media Content Layouts. If more than one is available, a default can be defined. Where a default is defined there is no need to add a formatter attribute to the T4 Tag. Alternatively, a Media T4 Tag can specify which Media Content Layout is used.

A Media Content Layout must include a T4 Tag to output the Media Item (highlighted below). In this example, the Media is an image and the Description element is used to populate the alt text of the image.

<img src="<t4 type="content" name="Media" output="file" modifiers="" />" alt="<t4 type="content" name="Description" output="normal" modifiers="striptags,htmlentities" />" />

Media Attributes

HTML attributes can be added to the Media Content Layout markup to provide more control over how a Media Item is published on a page. In the example above, the default alt text is populated by the Description element from the Media Library.

You could also specify a width and/or height to resize an image. Media Attributes are T4 Tags within the Media Content Layout.

Setting up Media Types and Media Content Layouts

How to set up a Media Content Layout and Media Type for Javascript files:

Section Metadata Content Type

Last Modified:

16 Aug 2023

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.0+ and up Toggle Dropdown

8.0+ and up

Description

The Section Metadata Content Type is a System Content Type. When enabled, it adds extra fields on the "General" tab for creating or editing a Section. This additional Section metadata is stored in Terminalfour as content within the Section, but it is not visible in the "Content" tab. These can be used for Programmable Layouts, Metadata, or a Content Layout can be added to the Content Type to output the content to the page. Most commonly, Section Metadata content is displayed with a Related Content Navigation Object, either in a Page Layout or another Content Layout.

For example, the Section Metadata Content Type could have a "Title" and a "Description" element. The "Title" could be used as the h1 on the page and in the "Title" tag (<title>). The "Description" could be mapped to the description meta tag, used in the header of your Page Layouts.

Configuration - Content Type Set Up

To check whether a Metadata Content Type already exists, go to Hierarchy Settings at System Administration > Hierarchy & Content Settings > Hierarchy.

If no Content Type is selected, then create a new Section Meta Content Type. If a Content Type is selected, then edit an existing Section Meta Content Type.

Creating a New Section Meta Content Type

1. Create a new Content Type called, for example, "Section metadata"
2. Set the "Minimum User Level" to "Contributor" 
3. Add the elements/fields required in the "General" tab when creating or editing a Section. The "Name" field from this Content Type will not be displayed.
4. Note the Content Type ID
5. To convert it into a System Content Type, the person or team that manages your TERMINALFOUR database will need to run the following SQL on the database:
   
   

   UPDATE template SET template_type=30 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

6. Go to System Administration > Hierarchy & content settings > Hierarchy and select the Content Type as the Meta data content type.

When creating or editing a Section, you should now see the extra elements you defined within the Content Type.

Edit a Section Meta Content Type

To edit an existing Section Meta Content Type, navigate to Assets > Content Type and note the ID of the Content Type. Since it's a System Content Type, it is not editable. To edit it, you will need turn it into a non-System Content Type. This is done with a SQL statement run on the Terminalfour database.  When the edits are made, another SQL statement is run to turn it back into a System Content Type.

Once the SQL that converts the Content Type into a non-System Content Type is run, the options will no longer be shown on the 'General' tab and the content will appear as normal content within a Section.
The Content Type should be edited and turned back into a System Content Type as quickly as possible.

1. To convert it to a non-System Content Type, the person or team that manages your Terminalfour database will run the following SQL on the database:

   UPDATE template SET template_type=10 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

2. Edit the Content Type and add/edit the elements/fields that are required in the "General" tab when creating or editing a Section.

3. Once you have created/edited the Content Type with the desired fields, convert it back into a System Type. The person or team that manages your Terminalfour database will run the following SQL on the database:

   UPDATE template SET template_type=30 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

When creating or editing a Section, you should now see the extra elements you defined within the Content Type.

Access Control Content Type

Last Modified:

20 Jan 2021

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.0 and up

Description

The Access Control Content Type is a System Content Type. When enabled, it adds options onto the Access tab when creating or editing a section to restrict access to the published section.

This document explains how to create or edit the Access Control Content Type. For a more detailed description of Access Control configuration, refer to our article on the Access Control Module.

Configuration

To check whether an Access Control Content Type already exists, go to Access Control Configuration at System administration > Set up sites & channels > Access control.

If an Access Control Content Type has been created, it will be listed and selected in the dropdown with other System Content Types:

If there is no Content Type selected or listed, then you can create a new Access Content Type.

Create an Access Control Content Type

1. Create a new Content Type; you can name this "Access Control" or give it another name
2. The most common Content Element used for Access Control is a Group Select element, which allows the Section to be restricted based on a Group name. All elements should be non-compulsory. This allows users to leave the access control tab blank, and inherit access from a parent Section. The element settings would look like this:

Convert the Content Type to a System Content Type

1. When the Content Type has been saved note the Content Type ID. This can be copied from the Content Type listing page:
   
2. To convert the Content Type into a System Content Type, run the following SQL statement on the database (you may need to ask the team or person or team that manages your Terminalfour database):
   

   UPDATE template SET template_type=30 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

3. Return to System Administration > Set up sites & channels > Access control and select the Content Type as the Access Control Content Type:
   
   

When creating or editing a Section, you should now see the options on the Access tab if Access Control is Enabled for the section.

Edit an Access Control Content Type

To edit an existing Access Control Content Type, navigate to Assets > Content Type and note the ID of the Content Type. Since it's a System Content Type, it is not editable. 

Once the SQL to turn the Content Type into a non-System Content Type is run, the options will no longer be shown when creating or editing Sections.
The Content Type should be edited and turned back into a System Content Type as quickly as possible.

1. Convert a System Content Type to a non-System Content Type
   To convert the Access Control Content Type to a non-System Content Type, the person or team that manages your Terminalfour database will need to run the following SQL on the database:

   UPDATE template SET template_type=10 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

2. Edit the Content Type and add/edit the elements/fields that are required to store the access control.

3. Convert the Content Type back to System Content Type
   Once you have created/edited the Content Type with the desired fields, convert it back into a System Type. The person or team that manages your Terminalfour database will need to run the following SQL on the database:

   UPDATE template SET template_type=30 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

When creating or editing a Section, you should now see the extra elements you defined within the Content Type.

Extended User Details Content Type

Last Modified:

14 Dec 2018

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

The Extended User Details Content Type is a System Content Type. When enabled, it adds extra fields on user profiles when creating or editing a user and these can be automatically populated when configuring LDAP or can be manually populated by users when editing their user profile. For example, the Extended User Details Content Type Content Type could have a "Job Title" and a "Department" element. The additional user profile information is stored in TERMINALFOUR as content within a Section in a hidden area of the Site Structure. The content can be published onto a site using the External Content Syncer or a Programmable Layout in order to create a staff directory.

Configuration - Content Type Set Up

To check whether an Extended User Details Content Type already exists, go to Users and workflows Settings at System Administration > System Settings > Users and workflow.

If no Content Type is selected for the Extended user details content type option, then create a new Extended User Details Content Type. If a Content Type is selected, then edit an existing Extended User Details Content Type.

Creating a New Extended User Details Content Type

1. Create a new Content Type called, for example, "Extended User Details".
2. Add the elements/fields required to store the user information. The "Name" element from this Content Type will not be displayed.
3. Note the Content Type ID.
4. To convert it into a System Content Type, the person or team that manages your TERMINALFOUR database will need to run the following SQL on the database:
   
   

   UPDATE template SET template_type=30 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

5. Go to System Administration > System Settings > Users and workflow and select the Content Type as the Extended user details content type.

When creating or editing a user, you should now see the extra elements you defined within the Content Type.

Edit a Section Meta Content Type

To edit an existing Extended User Details Content Type, navigate to Assets > Content Type and note the ID of the Content Type. Since it's a System Content Type, it is not editable. To edit it, you will need turn it into a non-System Content Type. This is done with a SQL statement run on the TERMINALFOUR database.  When the edits are made, another SQL statement is run to turn it back into a System Content Type.

Once the SQL to turn the Content Type into a non-System Content Type is run, the options will no longer be shown when creating or editing users..
The Content Type should be edited and turned back into a System Content Type as quickly as possible.

1. To change it into a non-System Content Type, the person or team that manages your TERMINALFOUR database will need to run the following SQL on the database:

   UPDATE template SET template_type=10 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

2. Edit the Content Type and add/edit the elements/fields that are required to store the user information.

3. Once you have created/edited the Content Type with the desired fields, convert it back into a System Type. The person or team that manages your TERMINALFOUR database will need to run the following SQL on the database:

   UPDATE template SET template_type=30 WHERE id=<CONTENT TYPE ID>

When creating or editing a user, you should now see the extra elements you defined within the Content Type.

Conditional Elements

Last Modified:

29 Jan 2025

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.4- and up

Description

Conditional Elements allows Administrators and Power Users to customize the Content Editing Experience for their users by conditionally displaying elements based on specific criteria. This feature helps simplify and streamline the content creation process for users by showing only relevant fields to Content Editors.

Note: The Conditional Elements feature is used to determine which elements are shown to Content Editors. It has no impact on how elements are output in your layouts.
For more information on how to add conditional logic to your layouts, you can check out our dedicated guide on the topic.

How to Configure Conditional Elements

Accessing Conditional Logic

• Navigate to the Content Type configuration (Assets » Content Types) and select a Content Type
• Select the "Elements" tab
• Click on the new "Conditional logic" button

This will open a slide-out window where you can create conditional statements and see a real-time preview

Real-Time Preview

When configuring Conditional Elements, you'll notice:

• A live preview of a content item is automatically displayed
• This preview updates in real-time as you add or modify conditional statements
• Allows you to immediately see how your logic affects the editing interface

Saving changes

Once you've created your conditional statements, ensure you save the Content Type before navigating away from the page.

Conditional Statement Types

There are three types of conditional statements. 

Content Element-Based Conditions, User Group Conditions, and User Type Conditions.

1. Content Element-Based Conditions

• Allows element(s) to be shown based on the content of a different element.
• Useful for revealing additional elements based on specific input

Example 1: "If 'Research Type' is set to 'Grant-Funded', then show 'Funding Body Details' field"

Example 2: "If 'Course Level' dropdown is 'Postgraduate', then show 'Research Methodology' field"

Options depending on element type

Depending on the type of element you select, the options available for your conditional statements may be different.

The table below outlines all the different options depending on the element type selected.

2. User Group Conditions

Allows showing/hiding elements based on user group membership.

Example 1: "If User is in group 'International Admissions', then show 'Visa Requirements' elements"

Example 2: "If User is in group 'Research Grants Team', then show 'Indirect Cost Calculation' element"

3. User Type Conditions

• Controls element visibility based on the user's permission level
• Helps manage element access for different user types (Administrator, Power User, Moderator, Contributor)
• Simplifies content creation UI for user types that may not need to see all elements

Example 1: "If User is at least 'Administrator', then show 'Advanced Options' element"

Example 2: "If User is at least 'Moderator', then show 'Background Image' element"

Important Considerations

Logic Rules

• All conditional statements use OR logic
• If ANY conditional statement indicates an element should be displayed, it will be shown
• Note: Currently, AND logic is not supported
  • For example, it's not possible currently to create a rule like "If 'Element A' contains 'Test' AND 'Element B' contains 'Test' Then show 'Element C'.
  • Let us know if this is something you'd use and how you'd like to use it!

Scope of Functionality

Editing Experience Only

• Conditional Elements ONLY affect how elements are displayed to Content Editors
• This feature does NOT impact how content is output on published pages

Content Layouts may require separate configuration for output logic.
See our dedicated guide on applying conditional logic to your layouts.

Not a Security Feature

• Conditional Elements is a quality of life improvement
• Hidden elements can still potentially be accessed or edited

Do NOT rely on this feature for access control or security purposes

Power User Permissions

Power Users do have the ability to manage Content types for any groups they are a member of.

This means that Power Users can create and edit existing Conditional Statements.

Important Note User Group-Based Conditions

• If an already existing Conditional Statement specifies an element should be shown only to users in a specific group
• AND the Power User is NOT a member of that group
• THEN the Power User will be prevented from:
  • Modifying that existing Conditional Statement
  • Removing that existing Conditional Statement
• Power Users can safely modify other conditional statements and add new ones

In the scenario that a Power User needs to remove or modify a Conditional Statement that they do not have access to, it is recommended that they

• Consult an Admin to make the change for them OR
• Request temporary access to the required group from an Admin

Required Fields

• If an element is marked as "required" but it is hidden by a conditional statement, it is NOT considered required
• "Required" now means "required if shown to content editors"

Saving Content with hidden fields

When saving content items, the data within hidden elements is NOT changed from how it was stored when the content is first loaded.

• If a user edits a content item and a field is hidden, the data in that field isn’t removed when saving
• If a user edits a content item and makes a change that results in a previously displayed element to become hidden, the value of the now hidden field remains unchanged when saving
• If a user edits a content item and changes a value in "Field A" and then that user subsequently makes a change that results in "Field A" being hidden, when the content item is saved, the changes in "Field A" will not be saved

If adding conditional statements to existing Content Types it is advised that you consider whether logic is also required in your Content Layouts to ensure the expected data is output.

Debugging Conditional Elements

Show All Elements Option

When an Admin (or a Power User with the permissions to edit the Content Type) edits a content item with Conditional Elements:

• A new "Show all elements" checkbox is available
• When checked, ALL conditional logic is temporarily disabled
• All elements are displayed, regardless of existing conditions

This option is there to help administrators troubleshoot cases where elements are hidden and it's not clear why.

Practical Uses For Conditional Elements

Here are some examples to give you some ideas of how conditional elements could be used.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but should give you some ideas of what's possible.

1. Course Catalog Content Type
   1. Show 'International Student Requirements' when 'Applicant' is not 'Local'
   2. Show 'Research Supervision Details' only when 'Program level' is Postgraduate
   3. Show 'Funding Opportunities' element to content editors in 'Financial Aid' group
2. Research Content Type
   1. Show 'Collaborative Research' element only when 'Project Type' is 'Interdepartmental'
   2. Show 'Compliance Documentation' for research involving human subjects
   3. Show 'Budget Modification' field only for users in the 'Department Head' group
3. Carousel Slider Content Type
   1. Show 'Background Image' element when 'Background Type' is 'Image'
   2. Show 'YouTube URL' element when 'Background Type' is 'Video'
4. Call To Action Content Type
   1. Show 'Internal Link' element when 'Link Type' is 'Internal'
   2. Show 'External Link Text' and 'External Link URL' elements when 'Link Type' is 'External'

Best Practices

The purpose of conditional elements is to simplify the content editing experience for your users. Below are some best practices to consider if you decide to implement Conditional Elements in your Content Types.

• Only hide elements when it genuinely improves the editing experience
• Consider the overall user experience when applying conditions
• Ensure that hidden elements do not create confusion for content editors
• Avoid adding too many conditional statements to a single Content type
  • This is likely to result in a confusing Content Editor experience and may result in performance degradations
• Utilize the real-time preview when configuring conditional logic
• Ensure that content layouts also contain logic to output the appropriate elements if required
• Admins can use the "Show all elements" option on content items when troubleshooting hidden fields
• Carefully test conditional logic 
  • Be aware that conflicting conditional statements can create scenarios where elements are never displayed
  • Review all conditional statements to ensure they do not inadvertently prevent element visibility
  • Use the real-time preview to validate that elements can be shown under expected conditions
  • If in doubt, ask another administrator to review your conditional logic

Quality control

Last Modified:

30 May 2019

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

TERMINALFOUR helps you maintain quality with Quality Control reporting tools for three areas:

• Accessibility
  • Go to Measure > Quality Control > Accessibility 
• SEO
  • Go to Measure > Quality Control > SEO 
• Broken links
  • Go to Measure > Quality Control > Broken links 

You can configure the settings for these tools in Quality Control Configuration by going to System administration > System settings > Quality control.

Google Analytics Dashboards

Last Modified:

03 May 2023

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.3.16 and up Toggle Dropdown

8.0 and up8.3.16 and up

Description

Google Analytics Dashboards has been removed from the product in 8.3.16. Google Analytics charts will still be viewable in Direct Edit.  

In TERMINALFOUR you can use Google Analytics to learn about the traffic to your site as well as conversion rates, sources of traffic and bounce rates. This allows you to measure and analyze your content's impact to improve your site's effectiveness.

The Analytics Dashboards are context-specific, and the reports are based on "Views" from Google Analytics. All configuration is handled by TERMINALFOUR administrators. Group rights are used to determine who can view the various dashboards.

There are four main steps when creating Dashboards:

Authorize Google Analytics Account API

First, go to System Administration > System Settings > Analytics:

If you haven’t already linked a Google Analytics account to TERMINALFOUR, select Analytics Account:

From the next screen, select Create New Account:

You'll need the Google API details to authenticate the account. Go to the Google API Console and create a new project specifically to use the Analytics API with TERMINALFOUR:

Give your project a meaningful name that you can recognize (this is especially important if you have more than one Project):

When you've created the Project, select Enable APIs and Services:

Searching for analytics will return some results. Select Analytics API (not the Google Analytics Reporting API):

Select Enable:

To get started with the API you’ll have to Create Credentials to use with it:

Next up, you’ll need to specify how you will be calling the API and the type of data you intend to access:

Next, you’ll be creating an OAuth2 Client ID to authorize the use of API with URLs from your TERMINALFOUR instance:

Here are some suggestions of what you could add here:

In the next step, select add the Product name. Your mail should already be filled in:

Select Done.

Once you've created the credentials are created, you can select its name from the list that appears:

From the next screen, you’ll see the Client ID and Client Secret that you will require to complete the analytics account set up. 
Just copy and paste both into the input boxes in TERMINALFOUR:

Make the account and product names recognizable to you and others in your organization.

After you’ve saved your changes, you will have to authorize the account. Just select the Actions menu and choose Authorize:

Then, select Allow from the pop-up that will appear. The requesting domain will differ from the one here:

When authorized, the status will be updated:

Now that your account is set up, it’s time to set up your Dashboards.

Each TERMINALFOUR instance comes with a sample Dashboard. In this example, we are going to use that as our starting point.

In System Administration > System Settings > Analytics you will see a list of existing Dashboards. If you haven’t created any others, the only one you’ll notice is ‘Sample dashboards with useful reports’. From the Actions menu select Edit Dashboard:

You’ll need to do a couple of things here. First up, link the Google Analytics account you’ve linked with your TERMINALFOUR installation to the dashboard.

Click on Select Account and choose the analytics you’ve just set up:

Using the Dashboard

Create a Dashboard with Account and View ID

Next up, you are going to need the Google Analytics View ID. A ‘View’ is essentially the data from a particular site and while a View can be filtered, so it only includes some of the data, the default that Google Analytics creates is unfiltered. That’s the one we are going to use.

This article on how a Google Analytics account is organized will give you a little more detail on some of the terms, like Property and View, which are used in Google Analytics.

Go to Google Analytics. You should already be logged in with the same Google account that you used to set up the API and select Admin:

Make sure that you have the right Property (website to track) selected and select View Settings: 

Copy the View ID:

Paste it into the View ID box in the Analytics settings:

Enable the Dashboard and choose Save Changes:

On this screen, you can also specify the Groups who can view the Dashboard.

View your Dashboard

To view your Dashboard go to Measure > Performance Dashboards > Site Analytics:

Customize Dashboard

You can change the order of Reports by clicking and dragging the Move icon from the Order column of each Report. Reports can be deleted and edited via the Actions menu on the right:

Each Report can be based on some or all of the following options:

A Query Explorer is available here so you can try out your queries beforehand.

Sample Report

Below you can see a sample Report measuring mobile traffic to a site.

This query returns information about sessions which occurred from mobile devices. Note that "Mobile Traffic" is defined using the default segment ID -14:

Direct Edit Integration

Once a Dashboard is displaying correctly it can be associated with a Channel.

When the Dashboard is associated with a Channel, the analytics will display in Direct Edit. The results are based on the Section path and displays like so:

Governance

Last Modified:

14 Dec 2018

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.0 and up

Description

TERMINALFOUR provides reports to assist with Governance:

Content owners

Page layout usage

Navigation usage

Content type usage

Google sitemap generator

Last Modified:

20 Aug 2019

User Level:

Version 8.0 and up

Description

Google Sitemap lets you create a site map of your system and submit it to Google on a scheduled basis. This is a way of keeping your site up-to-date for indexing on Google.

System administration > Set up sites & channels > Google sitemap generator

Please note there are a number of know bugs with this feature and we advise that you contact the Client Support team before setting up a Google Site Map.
In the future, we will be updating this feature and would welcome any input you have. Again you can contact the Client Support team and reference "PM-1495 Refresh & enhance google sitemap generator".

If you need more control, you can use Programmable Layouts to generate your Google Sitemap.

In this section you can read about the information you find in the four tabs:

• Sites
• Generate
• Queue
• Schedule

Sites

On the Sites tab, you can Edit the sites you have sitemaps created for already, and you can also create a new sitemap by clicking Create New.

Google Sitemap Information

Whether you create a new Google Sitemap or edit an existing one, the following information is needed:

Generate

Generate an up-to-date sitemap

Queue

View scheduled uploads to Google.

Schedule

Set up a schedule for uploads of your sitemap to Google.

Content owners

Last Modified:

14 Dec 2018

User Level:

Contributor

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

This report allows you to quickly set the owner across multiple sections or content items. You can also use it to see what items a particular user owns.

Go to Measure > Governance > Content owners

Report configuration

The report can be run on a Section, Channel or User/group.

Report target: Section

Report target: Channel

Report target: User or group

User or group: select a user or group to run the report on

Click +Run report will display the search results.

Search results

Content matching the search will be displayed in the listing. For each content item the Name, id, Owner, Section, Last modified and Status will be displayed. Results can be sorted and filtered.

The Actions menu allows you to Edit or Delete the content.

Reassign owner

To reassign the content owner, select the items you want to reassign, select the owner and then select "Reassign owner".

Accessibility Report

Last Modified:

14 Dec 2018

User Level:

Contributor

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

Accessibility checking functionality in TERMINALFOUR allows you to determine how accessible your content is. This is important to ensure your site can be used by people with visual impairments, etc.

To start the process, go to Measure > Quality Control > Accessibility. The reports are still using the v7.4 interface, so click the OK button to continue.

Documentation is available in our version 7.4 documentation of the Accessibility reports.

There are configuration options available for:

• The number of past reports are stored at System administration > System settings > Quality control
• The minimum user level who can access reports at System administration > User rights & roles > Role customization

SEO Report

Last Modified:

02 Aug 2024

User Level:

Contributor

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

With Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Reporting in Terminalfour, you can learn how easily a search engine can find your content. The SEO Reporting Tool is made up of a number of plug-ins that check the occurrences of key phrases in HTML elements. If you want a search engine to remember a specific phrase or word, e.g. "Terminalfour", the system can examine a Channel or Section to see how effective it is.

To run or configure a report, go to Measure > Quality Control > SEO. SEO Reports can be run immediately or recurrently via the Task Scheduler. 

The reports are still using the v7.4 interface, so click the OK button to continue.

Documentation is available in our version 7.4 documentation of the SEO reports.

There are configuration options available for:

• The number of past reports are stored at System administration > System settings > Quality control
• The minimum user level who can access SEO reports at System administration > User rights & roles > Role customization

Description of plugins available

With the exception of the URL checker and the Meta Check the score of each plugin is based on the total number of occurrences of key phrases found divided by a given threshold. If the number of occurrences are found the plugin returns full marks. Each plugin also has a weighted score which is configurable. The SEO score is then calculated by dividing the cumulative weighted score of all plugins by the cumulative weight of all plugins.

Broken links

Last Modified:

04 May 2023

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.3.16 and up

Description

The Broken Links Report identifies links not behaving as intended on your sites. This could be because the page they link to no longer exists, or a permission issue may prevent links from being followed.

To use the Broken Links Report, use Measure > Quality Control > Broken links. 

The Broken Links Report can be configured in the Quality Control Configuration. 

Task Scheduler

Internal broken links link between Sections and Content Items and the broken internal links report is generated when loading the report page.

To list external broken links in the report, an External link checker report must be scheduled with the Task Scheduler.

Listing

The listing page will automatically generate and list all broken internal links. However, external broken links will only be shown when an External link checker task has run.

Both internal and external links are shown together on this page, and you can order by each type.

When you click on the Action menu, you'll see links to:

• Edit content
• See response
• Preview content

Entries can be sorted and filtered.

For each broken link, the following is displayed:

• Content Item name
• Location
• ID
• Language
• Link type
  • Internal (links to Section and Content Items in Terminalfour)
  • External (hyperlinks)
• Response code
  • if you're not sure about a response code, you can check this reference 

Edit Content

Clicking on the Content Item name or selecting Edit Content from the Actions menu will take you to the Edit Content Item page, where each broken link is highlighted in red:

You can then fix the broken link and save the Content Item.

Response Information

To see more information on the Actions menu and select See Response:

For an internal broken link you can see the Section that can no longer be located:  

For an external broken link, the URL will be displayed:

Quality control configuration

Last Modified:

04 May 2023

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

This page contains the settings to configure the SEO report, broken link report and accessibility report.

Go to System administration > System settings > Quality control.

Accessibility report

Broken link checking

SEO report

Social posts

Last Modified:

15 Jul 2021

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.3.10 and up

Description

With Social Poster, you can post short messages from your content to:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Posts usually contain a short description and a link to the page containing the content. This page lists all of the posts made to Social Poster.

To view the list of social messages to be published on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, go to Engage > Push to Social. This opens the page shown below:

In the upper right corner is the Create New Post button (green). This allows you to manually create a post to one of the social media accounts. There is also an Accounts button (blue), which allows you to configure the social media accounts.

Posts are displayed in descending order with the most recent posts appearing at the top of the list. Posts will remain on this list for the time period specified in the Remove sent posts in the social poster configuration.

Actions

In the column with Actions buttons, you can use the drop-down list to choose actions to take with the Post in the row.

• If you click View details, this opens a window with more information about the post.
• If you click Post, this will send the post to the selected social media account. Alternatively, this can be configured to be sent automatically in the social poster configuration.
• You can Delete a post. If you choose to delete a post, you are challenged with a confirmation box. Confirm your selection to Cancel or Delete.‌

Access Control

Last Modified:

21 Jan 2021

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.0 and up

Description

If you'd like to add an authentication requirement to published pages on your site you can use Access Control to limit access to users within a specified Group. For example, you might have a staff-only area on your site that should only be accessible by specific Groups or Users.

Users can be authenticated using the following methods:

• log-in as a Terminalfour user
• log-in with a third-party authentication protocol like NTLM, LDAP or Shibboleth
• IP address based
• using a Control Rule Profile to configure a .htaccess file

In this article we'll cover the Access Control feature which allows you to configure the Groups who can access a Section's published pages.

Check out the Access Control Module we've created to give you even more control over Access Control.

 Follow the steps below to configure and implement Access Control:

1. Enable Access Control
2. Create Access Control Profile
3. Create the File Extension
4. Configure the Channel
5. Build the Site Structure
6. Create & enable Page Layout with PHP ext
7. Grant Group Access
8. Publish the Channel
9. Update the Configuration

Enable Access Control

To enable Access Control on a Section the first things we must do are:

• set up an Access Control Content Type
• configure the Access Control settings to use the Access Control Content Type

Now when you select the Access Control tab and enable the setting you can check the Group(s) that you would like to grant access to the published pages in this Section: 

Create the Access Control Profile

Add the T4 Tag

<t4 type="accesscontrol" output="groupnames" />

Adding this T4 Tag to a Content Element will output a comma-separated list of the Group names that are flagged as having access to the published page:

However, we need to enforce this. To do this we use an Access Control Profile.

Access Control Profiles

Access Control Profiles let you specify how Access Control rules should be applied to the published page.

Go to Sites & Channels > Access Control. Create a new Access Control Profile and select the Create New Basic PHP Access Control 

A basic profile has the following fields:

Create a File Extension

You may be using server-side code like PHP or ASP.NET on your page. In this case you will need to ensure that the file extension has been created.

Go to System Administration > System Settings > File Extensions. If you are using PHP and this file extension has not already been added, select Create New File Extension.

The extension value should not be preceded by a dot.

Configure the Channel

The Channel must be configured to publish content using the file extension you've added and to enable Access Control.

Go to System Administration > Set up Sites & Channels > Channels and edit the Channel that you want to use Access Control with.

Under Available File Extensions check Enable File Extension Overriding and permit PHP (if you are using PHP).

Under Access Control and Personalization, enable both Access Control and Personalization. From Configuration, select the Access Control Profile created earlier:

 Click Save Changes when you are done.

These settings must be applied to a Channel and will have no effect when applied to a Microsite.

Build the Site Structure

Three new Sections are required below the Section that has Access Control applied.

• Login
  • displays Login Screen (hidden from navigation).
• No Access
  • displays a message to users who have restricted access
  • hidden from navigation).
• Logout
  • displays a link to log out. Set the link to /?logout 
  • not hidden from navigation.

Add Content - Login

Your login panel could look like this:

 <!-- login form -->
<div class="loginPanel">
<h1>Heading goes here </h1>

<form action="" method="post">
<label for="uname">Username</label><input type="text" name="uname" id="uname">
<br />
<label for="pwd">Password</label><input type="password" name="pwd" id="pwd">
<br />
<input type="submit" value="Log in">
</form>
</div>

The form action must either be empty, as in this example, or contain the path to the published login page itself.

Add Content - No Access

Add the following code to the No Access Section using a plain text or code only Content Type:

<h1>You do not have access to see this page</h1>
<p>If you believe that you should have access to see this page, please contact your support team.</p>
<p><a href="/?logout">Please click here to log out</a></p>

Create & enable a Page Layout with the file extension

1. Edit the Page Layout which is currently enabled on the Section, for example, "About us". Copy the header and footer code and paste this into a new Page Layout.
2. Enable the appropriate file extension for the Page Layout.
3. In the Site Structure, enable the Page Layout where the Access Control is set up

Grant Group Access

Once Access Control has been configured and enabled you can assign Groups to the required Sections in the Site Structure.

1. Modify the Section(s) that you wish to control access to.
2. Select the Access tab.
3. Assign access by enabling the Group(s) that you want to grant access to

Enabling Groups allows members of those Groups access to the published Section. These Groups can consist of both TERMINALFOUR and Visitor Users.

Visitor User

You may have users who are required to access published content but do not require access to Terminalfour or may not be managed by your directory service.

For instance, you may want to grant access to users outside your organization, in this case, Visitor Users can be created. Visitor Users only have access to the published Section(s) and do not have access to the Terminalfour system. 

Publish the Channel

Publish the Channel to apply the changes.

Update the Configuration

The only file you need to modify is "Code-Before-Section.php" as this is where the settings for connecting to Terminalfour Site Manager Web Services are held, as well as the base URLs for each Access Controlled section or site.

Web Services Settings

The following three variables store the settings for connecting to TERMINALFOUR Web Services:

// Site Manager Web Services Username, Password & URL
$s_ws_user = 't4wsuser';
$s_ws_pass = 'password';
$s_ws_url = 'http://10.0.0.242/740001/services/';

Each variable must be updated to values which are appropriate for your own Terminalfour installation.

The username and password must log in as a local account within Terminalfour.

The URL specified for Web Services is your Terminalfour URL with "services/" replacing the "SiteManager" part. This URL must be accessible from your Web Server/PHP installation.

Forms & Transactions

Last Modified:

28 Aug 2024

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.2 and up

Description

Creating and maintaining web forms can be a headache. Not only do you need to create the mark-up (and sometimes scripting too), but you also have to consider who gets notified when someone fills out the form. Not to mention where and how the submissions are stored.  

Terminalfour makes this easy with two features:

Form Builder

Form Builder is a WYSIWYG form creation tool that lets you build advanced forms without HTML or scripting. As well as the standard form elements you can add:

• dependencies – if you want to add conditions to your form elements so a text box is displayed when a particular checkbox has been selected, you can
• email notifications – send a copy of each submission, including uploaded files, Terminalfour Users or Groups. Want to send the mail to a non-Terminalfour User? Just add an email address
• reCAPTCHA – want your forms bot-free? You can add Google reCAPTCHA functionality to keep your form submissions human only
• Payment gateway – use Stripe as a payment gateway so you can process credit cards
• customization – with Form Builder you can add classes and IDs to your form elements so you can add your own styling and scripts
• easy to publish – there are three ways to publish forms – T4 Tag, iFrame embed or, if you don't want to add it to a page you can just post a direct link to the form

Form Bank

Form Bank is a cloud-based server that securely stores your form definitions and submissions 

• encryption – all form definitions and submissions are encrypted in transit and at rest so you can be sure they are secure
• multi-region – Form Bank servers are located in Australia, Canada, the EU so depending on your data retention policy, you can be confident you know where it's stored 

Form Builder

Last Modified:

04 Oct 2024

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.1+ and up Toggle Dropdown

8.1+ and up

Description

With Terminalfour Form Builder you can create advanced web forms easily without coding. The forms you create can be fully customized to meet your needs.

When you click create new form, you initially start with a blank form. Click on field types to add new fields to your form. Fields include text fields, drop-down boxes, buttons etc. Fields can have dependencies and validations associated with them.

When a form is created and a submission made, Terminalfour creates a corresponding Content Type to manage the content.

To edit or create a new form go to Engage > Forms & Transactions.

Form Listing

Existing forms are listed in the table and can be sorted and filtered by:

• Name
• Last Modified Date
• Usage - the number of instances of this form within Terminalfour
  
  • this can be clicked on to show the number of location of the form instances:

If you are not connected to a Form Bank no forms will be listed and a warning will be displayed on the page.

To edit a form, you can either click on the form name or select Edit from the Actions Menu.

When submissions have been received for a form, they can be viewed from the Submissions option in the Actions Menu.  

Have a look at the documentation on Submissions to learn more.

To delete a form select Actions > Delete.

Create a form

Form creation divides into six steps:

1. General Settings – add necessary form information such as name and description. You can also apply Bootstrap styling or use your own.
2. Fields - select, add and configure form fields. You can also base your form on an existing Content Type
3. Dependencies – optional rules that can show or hide a form field based on the value that is input in another. For example, you might want to hide a list of faculty names unless the respondent ticks a box identifying themselves as a faculty member
4. Submissions – specifies the location that the submissions will be saved to. By default, this is set to an unpublished Section in TERMINALFOUR but a published Section can be specified too. Fields can also be mapped to a Payment Gateway here. In order to use this, a Payment Gateway must already be configured in System settings. You can also customize the redirects (to a URL or TERMINALFOUR Section) and messages for submission success or failure
5. Emails – a copy of each submission can be mailed to one or more Terminalfour Users. Non-Terminalfour user mail addresses can also be added 
6. Finish –  forms can be deployed using:
   • a T4 Tag to add to other Terminalfour content or layouts
   • embed code to add your form to a page not managed by Terminalfour
   • a shareable link that doesn't require a page to be created to deploy it

General settings

Fields

This is where you build your form by adding fields.

Configure field mappings

Map to Content Type

By default, a Content Type is automatically created for each form you create however you can map the Content Elements from an existing Content Type to your form fields.

The quickest way to do this is to select an existing Content Type from the dropdown list and click Create fields from Content Type. A form will be created with fields that map to the Content Elements in that Content Type:

The "Create fields from content type" option is only displayed on new forms that don't already contain form elements. If you have enabled reCAPTCHA on every form, then a form element is added, and you won't see the "Create fields from content type" option.

If you need to change how fields are mapped to the Content Elements, select Configure Field Mapping:

You may notice in the example above that not all Content Elements have been mapped to a field. In this example, one of the elements is a Media File. These do not map to fields. The following field mapping matrix will show you the fields that can and cannot be mapped:

Forms that have incomplete mappings are highlighted with an alert badge in the Existing Form table:

Field / input types

To get started, click on a field type to add it to your form:

Icon	Field type	Description
	Text input	Adds a text input used for text, numbers, passwords, web addresses etc.
	Email input	Adds an email input with an option to allow the user to receive a confirmation of their submission by email
	Dropdown	Allows users to select a single option from a dropdown
	Checkbox	Allows multiple options to be selected from a group
	Radio group	Allows users to select a single option from a group
	Date	Allows users to select a date and optional time
	Date range	Allows a start and end date to be set
	Text area	Allows multiple lines of text to be entered
	WYSIWYG	Displays a WYSIWYG editor to enter HTML. TinyMCE, the WYSIWYG editor that Form Builder uses, follows the WAI specification making it compatible with screen readers.  Find out more about Tiny MCE's Accessibility features.
	File	Uploads a file
	Hidden	Adds an input that will submit a value without the user seeing it
Advanced inputs
	CC info	Adds the required fields to accept payment information from the user. i.e. credit card number, expiry date etc. Only one occurrence allowed per form
	reCAPTCHA	Adds a  to help prevent spam submissions (available from Terminalfour v8.2.10)
Static elements
	Heading	Adds a Heading to the form
	Paragraph	Adds text to the form - useful to explain parts of your form to users
	Line break	Adds a line between fields to divide the form into sections

Field settings

Once added, each field can be edited.

General

Advanced

Validation

Validation can be set for different input data types.

Submit and Reset buttons

Firing a Google Tag Manager Custom Event

When the user clicks the submit button a Google Tag Manager (GTM) custom event named formSubmitted is fired, which also contains the name and description of the form:

{
  'event':'formSubmitted',
  'formName': 'The form name',
  'formDescription': 'The form description'
}

This event can be used in Google Tag Manager so form submissions are tracked.

Dependencies

Dependencies show and hide fields based on the rules you provide.

Dependencies read like a sentence and allow you to show or hide a field based on the value of another one. Click the 'Add dependency' button to get started.

For each dependency, you can have one or more "if" statements and then can show or hide another field based on those conditions.

The operators for the if statements will vary based on the field input type:

• is
• is not
• contains
• does not contain
• is selected
• not selected
• begins with
• ends with
• is populated
• is not populated

From version 8.3.5 the conditions have been simplified so the dependency rule will be triggered:

• "If all" conditions are true (an AND statement)
• "If any" of the conditions are true (an OR statement)

The 'option value' should be entered rather than the 'option text' for any list-based fields.

Submissions

When your form is created you will have to consider what happens to the data when the form is submitted. 

By default, submissions are saved in an unpublished Section, but you can also specify the Section to save submissions to – either a specified Section or a Child of the Section that an instance of the form appears in. You can also send submitted data to a payment gateway.

Submission Statuses

When your form is successfully submitted a new entry is added to the submission database table in Form Bank with a status of "pending". On a failed submission, no entry is added to the database. 

When Form Builder imports the "pending" submissions from Form Bank to Terminalfour, the status of pending entries is changed to "received".

The following two scenarios could result in a failed submission:

• A Password input type with validation (added via the Validation tab) that requires a capital letter. When a form is submitted without a capital letter in the password input value the Form Bank server will throw a validation error that will result in a submission failure message.
• Shutting down Form Bank server right before submitting a form triggers a connection error 

You should always test your form before deploying.

On a successful submission

When a submission is successfully saved the default message displayed to the end-user appears:

The following options can be edited:

On a failed submission

When a submission has failed, the default message displayed to the end-user appears:

The following options can be edited:

Additional Submission Options

Webhook URL

When a form submission is received in Terminalfour, the submission data will be sent to the URL in the Webhook URL field.

Example Payload

Below is an example of a a payload that would be sent in a form submission. 

Payment gateway/credit card fields are ignored and not sent in the webhook request.
File upload fields are ignored and not sent in the webhook request.

{
  "data": {
    "formFields": [
      {
        "Name": "Form test",
        "fieldName": "Name",
        "fieldValue": "Form test"
      },
      {
        "Are you filling surname 1": "Yes",
        "fieldName": "Are you filling surname 1",
        "fieldValue": "Yes"
      },
      {
        "Check any option that apply": "Option 1, Option 3",
        "fieldName": "Check any option that apply",
        "fieldValue": "Option 1, Option 3"
      },
      {
        "Comment": "This is a comment",
        "fieldName": "Comment",
        "fieldValue": "This is a comment"
      },
      {
        "Date with time": "2024-03-27T12:32:00Z",
        "fieldName": "Date with time",
        "fieldValue": "2024-03-27T12:32:00Z"
      },
      {
        "Email": "test@test.com",
        "fieldName": "Email",
        "fieldValue": "test@test.com"
      },
      {
        "Pick a date": "2024-03-28T12:32:00Z",
        "fieldName": "Pick a date",
        "fieldValue": "2024-03-28T12:32:00Z"
      },
      {
        "Select an option": "Option 1",
        "fieldName": "Select an option",
        "fieldValue": "Option 1"
      },
      {
        "Surname1": "This is my surname",
        "fieldName": "Surname1",
        "fieldValue": "This is my surname"
      },
      {
        "Text": "Some text",
        "fieldName": "Text",
        "fieldValue": "Some text"
      },
      {
        "Text (1)": "Some text",
        "fieldName": "Text (1)",
        "fieldValue": "Some text"
      },
      {
        "HTML": "<p>This is an <strong>example</strong>, let's see how is displayed",
        "fieldName": "HTML",
        "fieldValue": "<p>This is an <strong>example</strong>, let's see how is displayed"
      }
    ],
    "formID": 1,
    "formName": "Form test",
    "submissionURL": "http://example.com/form/MS1lbg==",
    "submissionIP": "0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1",
    "submissionTimestamp": "2024-03-15T12:33:29Z"
  },
  "event": "form_submission_add",
  "id": 7,
  "requestType": "Terminalfour Form Submission",
  "timestamp": "2024-03-15T12:34:09.674Z"
}

Error handling

If Terminalfour receives a 200 response from the endpoint you supply the submission we will consider that successfully delivered.

If there is no response, or if we receive an error response, we will retry sending the submission every 10 minutes (be default). After 5 successive timeouts or errors for a given submission we'll display a notification in the main header area of Terminalfour for admins.

Payment gateway field mappings

When a Payment Gateway has been configured and a CC Info field has been added to the form you can select the configured Payment Gateway from a drop-down list.

You can specify values for all submissions here, map them to values submitted in the form, or even calculate them from the values of multiple fields in your form.

Emails

There are two types of emails that can be sent from Form Builder:

• Submission email
  • the emails sent to specified Terminalfour Users or Groups or external (non-system) recipients when the form receives a submission

• Confirmation email
  • this is the email that is sent to the user who has submitted the form (if they have provided their email); it can also contain a copy of their submission

Submission email

The submission mail is sent to specified Terminalfour Users and Groups as well as external mail addresses.

These are the options:

Any files included in a form submission will be attached to the email. In the email itself, the label of the file field will appear with the file name next to it.

If your Terminalfour instance is cloud-hosted with AWS, the submission emails (including attachments) cannot exceed 10MB.

Confirmation email

When a submission is successful, you can select who receives an email with the submission values. Confirmation emails can only be sent from a form that includes an email input field.

To configure the confirmation email:

1. Select Allow a user to receive a copy of their submission in the Confirmation email settings
2. You can customize the Email subject text in the email that's sent
3. By default, this message that appears above the submission text in the confirmation email is "Below is a copy of the information you sent to us". You can change the text by clicking on Customize the confirmation message. This will bring you to the Emails tab, where you can add the custom text.

If you are setting up a new form, the form will be saved before you can customize the text.

Customizing the confirmation message

You can customize the header and footer of the email by clicking on the Customize the confirmation message link and adding the custom header and footer:

The following HTML tags and attributes can be added to the custom header and footer:

When the Allow a user to receive a copy of their submission box is selected, the user will see a checkbox beside the email input:

The confirmation mail looks like this:

Finish

Once you have created and configured your form there are three ways you can configure it:

• T4 Tag
• Embed code
• Shareable link 

Just copy and paste one of the code snippets to deploy your form.

If your form is added with a T4 Tag and contains a WYSIWYG input type you must ensure that the Page Layout that the form is deployed with explicitly has a doctype declaration (<!DOCTYPE html>). If this isn't present, input data will not be saved.

This is because TinyMCE enforces strict standards mode 

Forms added with the embed code or those that use a shareable link are not affected by this. 

Form Bank

Last Modified:

29 Sep 2022

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.1+ and up

Description

Form Builder allows you to easily create advanced web forms without programming. Forms can be fully customized to meet your needs. Features include payment processing and reCAPTCHA bot detection.

The definition and submission data from Form Builder forms is stored on a dedicated, cloud-based Form Bank server that your TERMINALFOUR installation authenticates with. To keep you aligned with data retention legislation, Form Bank server locations are region specific. This lets you know where submitted data is stored. The following regions are currently available:

• Australia
• Canada
• European Union
• United States

The Form Builder FAQ page has further details on the server architecture and security.

Connect to Form Bank

A connection to Form Bank must be configured in System Administration > System Settings > Form Builder. The Form Bank is where the form definition information and submission data is stored. The Form Bank URL is region dependent. 

You can obtain a region-specific URL from Terminalfour support. This is entered in the input box labeled Form Bank URL. Click Authenticate.

When authenticating, Terminalfour generates a private/public key pair, the private key is stored in the Terminalfour "contentstore" directory. Terminalfour then takes the current active license hash and the public key together with client information and sends this to the Form Bank. Form Bank saves this information and returns a customer ID to Terminalfour.

Since Form Bank works only over SSL your Terminalfour server must have an SSL cert. 

When the keys are exchanged a token is generated on the Form Bank server, encrypted using the public key and sent back to Terminalfour. Terminalfour decrypts this token and this is then used for between Terminalfour and the Form Bank. A new token is generated at ongoing intervals. 

If the there's an issue with your Form Bank connection or if Form Bank becomes unavailable then a connection error w.ill be show in the Notification center.

Disconnect from Form Bank

To disconnect Terminalfour from Form Bank, select the Disconnect button. When Disconnected, you will be unable to access, edit or view any forms on the Form Bank server.

While you can use Form Bank servers from more than one region, you can only connect to one server at a time and only the forms from the currently connected Form Bank server will be available within Terminalfour.  

When disconnecting from a Form Bank server, the data is not removed. On reconnection, existing forms and submissions will still be available.

Form Bank FAQs

Last Modified:

30 Jan 2025

User Level:

Version 8.2 and up

What level of security is used?

Terminalfour generates a unique RSA public/private key pair. The public part of this key pair is uploaded to Form Bank. This upload can only be completed over Secure HTTP (HTTPS). The private part of the key pair remains on your server at all times. Forms and their submissions are encrypted in transit using HTTPS/TLS and encrypted at rest using AES-128-bit encryption and the generated RSA public key. This data cannot be decrypted without the private key.

See Form Bank Configuration for more information.

How do email notifications work?

You can configure who receives a notification email when a new submission is created; this includes Terminalfour Users and Groups. You can also add the email addresses of non-Terminalfour users. The mail that is sent includes the submission content and is HTML.

Does the Form Builder require the live website to interact with the Terminalfour server?

No - a connection between the web server and the Terminalfour server is not required. Please see the architecture section for further information.

How are the submissions stored?

Submissions are stored temporarily on the Form Bank servers. The Form Bank does not require direct access to the Terminalfour server. However, the Terminalfour server needs access to download the configured forms and the generated submissions. On a timed basis (via a scheduled task), the Terminalfour application will connect to the Form Bank server (using HTTPS). Once correctly authenticated, the application will download all new encrypted form data. When the encrypted form data has been downloaded, it is decrypted using the customer's unique private key and added to the Terminalfour database.

Once this download has been completed successfully, the data is deleted from the Form Bank server. When the first submissions for a form are downloaded to the Terminalfour server, a Content Type is created. The submission is then saved in the Content Type in a hidden Section or the section you have specified submissions to save to in the Form's settings. This Section can be accessed from the form listing page. Please note that submissions can then be mirrored into a Section and published as regular content.

Since downloaded submissions on Terminalfour are decrypted, other appropriate security measures should be implemented to safeguard access to submissions. Such measures include applying Edit Rights to the submission Section and the form's Content Type, encryption of the Terminalfour database, and implementing processes for processed submissions (deleting the submission or editing confidential information).

Can file upload sizes be limited on a per-upload field basis?

When selecting and configuring file input fields, you have the option to specify a max-upload size under the "Validation" tab. By default it will use the Terminalfour server's max upload size.

Can we restrict file types on a per-upload field basis?

Yes, it is possible to specify permitted file extensions under the validation options for File inputs.

Are the files scanned for malicious code/viruses upon upload?

This is dependent on the anti-virus setup on the user's PC and the Terminalfour server.

How are the files stored/accessed? Is it possible to have them easily downloaded?

Submitted files cannot be easily accessed outside of Terminalfour. They are protected using the client's license and encrypted using the private key generated when connecting to the Form Bank. Once the file is downloaded to Terminalfour, it is attached to the submission content and can be published like any other file that is part of the system.

Please see "How are submissions stored?".

Where are the Form Bank servers located?

We currently have four locations available as follows:

1. Ireland
2. North Virginia, USA 
3. Sydney, Australia
4. Central Canada

What redundancy is provided for the Form Bank servers?

The Form Bank servers comprise multiple nodes in a cluster. This will provide both the performance and resilience required for this service.

What happens if my Terminalfour server is down?

The submissions will be stored on the Form Bank server until the scheduled task on the Terminalfour server requests to download them.

The forms will still operate as they are called from the Form Bank server.

Can I use my own Form Bank server?

At the moment, you can use the SaaS Form Bank servers provided by Terminalfour. If there are sufficient requests for client-specific Form Bank servers, we will consider this in the future.

Do I need SSL on the web server?

It is recommended but not required. The form will work via a web server with http, as it will be loaded over https and submitted over https on the Form Bank server. If the site has https, then the browser will display it as being secure; this is why we recommend the site also runs over https.

Is there any spam protection on forms?

A Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) token guarantees one-time form submissions to prevent spam. When the form is requested, the browser is given a token. The form can only be submitted once with the token and before the token expires.

In addition, reCAPTCHA can be added to your form.

Form Bank Configuration

Last Modified:

02 Feb 2023

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.1+ and up

Description

Forms are stored on a dedicated Form Bank server, which your Terminalfour creates a connection and authenticates with. Form submissions are all handled through the same Form Bank server. Terminalfour has a number of Form Bank servers located around the world and you need to connect to the Form Bank for your region.

The Form Builder FAQ page has further details on the server architecture and security.

Form Bank connection

To configure the Form Builder, go to System administration > System settings > Form builder:

Current status

Displays the status of the Form Bank connection status:

Form Bank URL

Enter the URL for the Form Bank server, as provided to you by Terminalfour and click the Connect button 

Once you have authenticated your Form Bank connection, all forms will be saved to your Form Bank. The public form is pulled from Form Bank and all data submitted by a form is sent to the Form Bank. 

Security and Authentication

When you connect to the Form Bank server, TERMINALFOUR creates a key pair. The private key is saved locally in a password-protected Java key store. The public key is sent to the Form Bank server.

Connection to the Form Bank from the public is via HTTPS (SSL) only; this avoids fallback, removing the possibility of "man in the middle (MitM)" attacks on the public forms.

Form submissions are saved with 2 phase encryption using RSA and AES; the submitted forms can only be unlocked using the private key.

Our Form Builder FAQ page has further details on the server architecture and security.

To prevent against spam, a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) token is used to guarantee one-time form submissions. When the form is requested, the browser is given a token. The form can only be submitted once with the token and before the token expires.

Submission Downloading

After linking to the Form Bank server, TERMINALFOUR will automatically create a Scheduled Task to download form submissions into your instance of TERMINALFOUR.

For versions prior to 8.1.6, the scheduled task will need to be created manually in the Task Scheduler.

By default, Submissions are downloaded every 10 minutes. You can change this by going to System Administration > Task Scheduler. Filter for the word "form". The item called named "Formbank submission import" has an Execution Interval of 10 minutes: 

Click on the name or go to Actions > Edit and change the Execution Interval.

Learn more about Submissions here.

Manually Sync Submissions

From 8.3, you can force a re-index of submissions if submissions have not synced.

When "Sync submissions" is clicked, an alert is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

reCAPTCHA setup

Last Modified:

19 Sep 2022

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.2 and up

Description

With reCAPTCHA you can bot-proof your forms by ensuring that they're filled out by humans. TERMINALFOUR offers reCAPTCHA validation on all the forms you create with Form Builder. There are reCAPTCHA FAQs here.

For a general overview of reCAPTCHA, check out the Google Guide.

To enable reCAPTCHA in TERMINALFOUR, the reCAPTCHA v2 Site key and Secret key are required. If you are already using a Google product on your site, like Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager, you'll need access to the Google Admin account you use for that. Otherwise, you'll have to set up an account.

Register a new site

If you have not registered your site, log in to Google and go to the Google reCAPTCHA admin panel.

Complete the options under "Register a new site" and choose reCAPTCHA v2. reCAPTCHA v2 requires the user to click a checkbox indicating the user is not a robot.

Site key and Secret key

On the next screen you can scroll to the Keys section of the page:

Copy the Site key and Secret key. 

Only one reCAPTCHA key pair can be added to FORM Builder in your Terminalfour instance.

You'll need both of these so keep this tab open. 

Form Builder Settings

In another tab, open Terminalfour and go to System administration > System settings > Form Builder to complete the configuration.

Use the switch to enable reCAPTCHA across your site(s). When reCAPTCHA is enabled in the settings, a reCAPTCHA option will be available in Form Builder under Advanced Inputs. Paste the Site and Secret keys into the text boxes. 

When "enforcement" is enabled, reCAPTCHA is added to every form, so you do not add it. If you want to select the forms that reCAPTCHA is added to, then you should disable "enforcement."

If you choose to add reCAPTCHA to all forms, you will not see the "Create fields from content type" option. This is because "Create fields from content type" is only available when there are no form elements present in a form.

When you create a new form or editing an existing form, the display of the reCAPTCHA field will change, depending on the combination of enable and enforcement settings you choose. 

Adding reCAPTCHA to your form when reCPATCHA is enabled and not enforced:

Adding reCAPTCHA to your form when reCPATCHA is enabled and is enforced:

When enforcement is disabled, forms that had a reCAPTCHA explicitly added before enforcement was enabled will still have a reCAPTCHA field. Forms that had a reCAPTCHA because enforcement was enabled will not have a reCAPTCHA field.

reCAPTCHA FAQ

How many reCAPTCHA key pairs can be added?

One reCAPTCHA key pair can be added.

How can I add more than one domain?

Multiple domains can be added to one site key in Google. Please include the domain of the Form Bank URL when configuring the Google reCAPTCHA.

Which users can configure the reCAPTCHA?

Administrator users can configure the reCAPTCHA at System administration > System settings > Form builder.

Can a reCAPTCHA be shared?

Sharing is not required as only one reCAPTCHA is configured per installation.

Can the Google site type be specified?

The site type reCAPTCHA v2 is used. 

How is the widget rendered?

The widget is explicitly rendered.

Do I need to specify the language code?

There is no need to set the language code as Google will set the language based on the user's browser.

How do I ensure reCAPTCHA is set on all forms?

Administrator users can configure "enforcement" so that the reCAPTCHA will show on all forms. This is configured at System administration > System settings > Form builder.

Where on the form will the reCAPTCHA be displayed?

It will be displayed before the Submit button in all cases. It is not possible to reorder the position of the reCAPTCHA.

How is the reCAPTCHA response processed?

The response is verified via an API request to https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify.

What logic is applied to the "hostname" data in the API response?

The logic is based on the "success" property in the API response.

If the "success" response is true, the response token is set as a value in the submission so it can be submitted.
If the "success" response is false, the user is brought the the failure error message / page specified for the form. No response token is sent so the submission is not submitted. The API request error code can be seen in the POST request, via the developer console.

Form submissions

Last Modified:

20 Jun 2023

User Level:

Power User

Version 8.1+ and up

Description

When a form created with Form Builder has been submitted, the submission data is stored on Form Bank. All submission data is encrypted, the only way of decrypting the submissions is using the private key that was generated and is saved on the Terminalfour  server. This is done automatically when the form submissions are downloaded using the download task.

The Submission screen in Terminalfour is accessed by going to Engage > Forms & Transactions and selecting View Submissions from the Actions menu:

You can use this to track down a particular submission or see how a form is performing over time.

Submission summary

This shows a summary of submissions for the form over the date range.

The selected date range can be changed by Day, Week, 30 days or a custom range:

Submission listing

The listing shows all submissions for the form in the selected time period. 

Created date/time: the date/time the form was submitted:

The submissions can be filtered and sorted by the columns. 

Actions

• View/edit submission
• Delete
  • When a submission is deleted, it is marked as inactive and purged from the system entirely. When submission content is deleted from the section it becomes inactive. Inactive submission content still displays in the submission report. When submission content is purged using recycled content, it is removed from the submission report entirely.

Additional fields can be selected for display:

Download as CSV this will download all of the submissions as a CSV file.

Stripe Payment Gateway Form Submissions

If your form contains payments made with Stripe each submission will feature a column titled "Credit Card". If this is not visible, click on the "Select fields to display" button to enable the column. Each form submission with a successful credit card transaction will feature a "Succeeded" link. When selected, the link will open a "Payment details" modal.

In the modal, the Transaction ID is a link that will open the Stripe page for that transaction (Stripe log-in required):

In the event that a payment is unsuccessful, the form will not submit and the form submission will not appear in Terminalfour. 

Email notification 

When a form is submitted successfully, an email is sent to those who have been selected as notification recipients. When the form contains a Stripe payment, details of the payment transaction, including the transaction ID, are appended to the email:

The Stripe documentation features a list of test credit card numbers you can use to test payment processing. 

Payment gateways configuration

Last Modified:

07 Jun 2023

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.1+ and up

Description

To configure the Payment Gateways that you want to use with Form Builder, go to System Administration > System Settings > Payment Gateways. Before configuring a Payment Gateway, the connection with Form Bank server will need to be configured.

Set up a Payment Gateway 

If you are an Administrator and you want to process online payments with your forms, then the Payment Gateway must be configured in System Administration > System Settings > Payment Gateways.

For Administrators, there are two types of gateway available:

Terminalfour

• this is a test Payment Gateway that simulates how the form will work, this will not charge a card or accept any information

• the "Required Provider Fields" are mandatory:
  • Currency: the default currency that payments will be processed with  
  • Account Number and API Key fields will accept any string
• this should not be used in a production environment

Stripe

There's a list of the minimum and maximum amounts that can be charged with Stripe here.

Stripe is the default payment processor in Terminalfour. When you have created a Stripe account, you will have access to two sets of API keys – one for test and one for live mode. In test mode, no payment information is sent or processed. Use this to test the payment functionality on your form initially

In this example, two gateway profiles – "Test" (using the Stripe test API key) and "Production" (using the Stripe live key) have been set up:

Set up a Stripe payment gateway

You'll need a Stripe account to login to the dashboard. From here, you can get the Publishable and Secret keys to set up your Payment Gateway profile. Select a key to copy it to your clipboard. In this example the test API keys are displayed:  

Go to Administration > Settings > Payment Gateways and select Add new profile. When adding your profile details ensure that Stripe is selected from the Payment Provider dropdown and paste your Publishable and Secret keys in the provider fields:

Don't forget to Save changes.

You can switch from Test to Production when you are satisfied with the payment flow on your form.

Learn how form submissions with Stripe payments are handled.

Adding Credit Card Info with Form Builder

When a payment gateway has been set up, a CC Info field will display in Form Builder below the Advanced inputs heading:

If you have more than one Payment Gateway configured (e.g., test and production gateways) you can specify the one to use in the Additional Submission Options as well as field mapping options.

The input's position can be moved up or down within the form.

Form submissions that contain Stripe payments contain the Stripe payment ID and a link to the payment.

Testing your form

It's recommended that you thoroughly test your form with a test Payment Gateway before making it live with a production Payment Gateway. Since real credit card numbers cannot be used in test mode Stripe has provided a list of test credit card numbers you can use.

Here's how a published form with a CC Info field can look:

Access Control Configuration

Last Modified:

21 Jan 2021

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.0+ and up

Description

Access Control gives you greater control over who can view published pages.

To configure the options for Access Control, go to System administration > Set up sites & channels > Access control.

An Access Control Content Type must be created before you can select it from the dropdown list. 

Access Control Rule Profile

Last Modified:

28 Jul 2022

User Level:

Administrator +

Version 8.0 and up

Description

With Access Control you can configure the .htaccess file to restrict access to published pages to users with specific usernames and passwords. To do this you must configure Apache and have access to the Terminalfour database.

We have also created a module that provides more flexibility over Access Control that you might want to look at.

1. Configure Apache
2. Create the System Content Type
3. Enable Access Control Content Type
4. Create the Access Control Profile
5. Configure the Channel
6. Site Structure
7. Publish the Channel

Configure Apache

In this example, we are using the default .htaccess file. Your server may be configured to use a file with a different name. The file locations here are provided as an example.

We'll create a Content Type that will allow the author to enter the username of the user who has permission to view a Section. This is done by entering their username and checking it against a static file on the server that is not accessible from the web. 

Set AllowOverride AuthConfig

Edit the httpd.conf. The location of the file is dependant on where Apache is installed.

Find the directory entry for your site, e.g.

<Directory "/etc/apache2/htdocs">

Change the line from

AllowOverride None

to

AllowOverride AuthConfig

<Directory "/etc/apache2/htdocs"> 
    # 
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All", 
    # or any combination of: 
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews 
    # 
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All" 
    # doesn't give it to you. 
    # 
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see 
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options 
    # for more information. 
    # 
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks 
  
    # 
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files. 
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords: 
    #   AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit 
    # 
    AllowOverride AuthConfig 
    # 
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server. 
    # 
    Require all granted 
</Directory>

Create the password directory and .htpasswd file

Create a directory /etc/apache2/passwords. This should be a location that is not accessible from the web.

Create a file called .htpasswd. If you're not sure about creating .htpasswd files have a look at this guide. 

Usernames and passwords should have the following form:

jbloggs:$ttr1$MwpTbdEW$5tt6SOJ4oQIa9807Ex/MV0

This file will be referenced from the Content Layout to verify users for access to restricted content. 

Create the System Content Type

Before you follow the guide to creating an Access Control Content Type note that for this example, the Content Type comprises just one Content Element:

Create a Content Layout called text/access-control. All other fields can be left as the default

Add the following Content Layout Code and save.

# start file
AuthType Basic 
AuthName "Restricted Files"
AuthBasicProvider file
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/passwords/.htpasswd
Require user <t4 type="content" name="Users Allowed" output="normal" modifiers="striptags,htmlentities" />
# end file

Enable Access Control Content Type

Go to the Access Control Configuration at System administration > Set up sites & channels > Access control

Check Enable hierarchical access control.
Set the Access control content type to the Content Type just created.
Save changes.

Create the Access Control Profile

Go to Sites & Channels > Access control 

Select Create new to create a profile. Then select Create new next to Access Control Rule Profile and provide a Name and Description.

• File Name: enter the name of the access file name set on your Apache webserver. By default, the name will be ".htaccess".
• CSS for links to Access Controlled Sections/Media categories: enter the path to the CSS file if you've styled the links that have been created.

Select Add to save the changes.

Configure the Channel

Go to System administration > Set up sites & channels > Channels

Edit the Channel you want to enable Access Control on.

Under Access control and personalization, check Enable Access Control and select the Access Control Profile created earlier. 

The setup is now complete and Sections can be access-controlled for that Channel.

Site Structure

Edit the Section(s) you wish to control access to and ensure it contains content that will publish for the channel.

• Select the Access tab.
• Enable Access Control
• Enter the usernames with a space between each user.

Publish the Channel

Publish the Channel and browse to the restricted section on the published site. A popup requesting a username and password will be presented. Once a valid username and password is entered, the restricted page will be displayed.

Social poster

Last Modified:

29 Mar 2023

User Level:

Administrator

Version 8.3.10 and up

Description

With Social Poster you can post short messages from Content Items to:

• Facebook 
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Posts usually contain a short description and a link to the page containing the Content Item.

To ensure the full use of this feature, check that the server running Terminalfour has web access. Social Poster must be able to access the live content and it needs access to Twitter and Facebook for authentication and to send the post.

• For Twitter, you'll need a Twitter account to create the Twitter app used for sending posts
  • More information on creating a Twitter app. 
•  For Facebook, a Facebook account is required to create the Facebook app that is used to send posts
  • More information on creating a Facebook app.
•  For LinkedIn, a LinkedIn account is required to create the LinkedIn app that is used to send posts 
  • More information on creating a LinkedIn app

Ensure you have an accurate time source on this server as access tokens are time-sensitive.

After you create an app, the API keys required by the Social Poster will be generated,

How to work with the Social Poster

When you want to publish content to be published on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, go to System Administration > Set up sites & channels > Social poster. You'll need to create the accounts.

To set up an account you should:

1. Go to the Setup tab and add your API keys
2. Create a new account 

You can use the +Create new account to add a new account

Accounts

From this tab, you can manage accounts and review status. 

Here's an example of the screen with all three types of social network accounts configured:

In the first column of the list is Accounts. The contents of this column are the Name of the account. A brief description can be included if an entry was made. Use the arrow button in the head row to change the list displayed from an A to Z list to Z to A list. There is also an ID number. The ID is assigned when you create a new account.

Network

This is a list of associated networks used with the name of the account - they are listed as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Each box shows the network name and the status of the post. The status can be: 

Use the arrow button in the head row to change the list displayed from an A to Z list to Z to A list.

Actions

In the column with Actions buttons, you can use the drop-down list to choose actions to take with the Account in the row.

• You can Authorize the release of a message from that account.
• If you click Edit, this takes you to the corresponding Account page where you can confirm or edit the fields on that page.
• You can Delete an account. If you choose to delete an Account, you are challenged with a confirmation box - see below. Confirm your selection to Cancel or Delete.‌

Deleted accounts are not recoverable.‌‌

Setup

Before you can authorize a network you must first add the API keys for the network(s) you'd like to add. 

‌Run social poster

This dropdown allows you to set how often posts are sent to the specified social network(s). The options are:

Remove sent posts

This dropdown allows you to set when sent posts are removed from the system completely. The options are:

Add the account key and secret

For each network, you need an account to get developer information to create an app for sending posts. 

When all entries are complete, click Save changes.

+ Create new account‌‌‌