Using the Shards Extension

What is Shards?

Shards is a Radiant extension that allows other extension developers to modify aspects of Radiant’s default administration interface. It does this by deconstructing each view template into hierarchical component pieces called “regions”. A developer may insert or remove view partials from these regions from an extension. This permits:

• Adding new user interface elements
• Removing or replacing user interface elements
• Customizing appearance using CSS
• Customizing UI behavior with Javascript

Basic usage

Shards regions are accessible from the Radiant::AdminUI object, which is simply named “admin” inside an extension class. They are organized first by controller name, then by action name, and then by region. For example, if I wanted to add a partial called “tags” to the “form_bottom” region of the Page editing screen, in my extension’s activate method, I would do this:

  admin.page.edit.add :form_bottom, "tags"

The add method also allows you to insert partials in specific orders, i.e. before or after an existing partial. Examples:

  admin.page.edit.add :main, "help_links", :before => "edit_header" 
  admin.page.edit.add :form_area, "categories", :after => "edit_page_parts"

Alternatively, you may access a given region directly using a dot or bracket accessor. Regions are essentially arrays of partial names.

  admin.page.edit.form_area
  admin.page.edit['form_area']
  admin.page.edit[:form_area]

Regions structure

Below is a tree of the current structure of regions partials in Shards. You may also discover this by reading the source of shards_extension.rb. It is listed by controller and action(s). Regions are in brackets.

Admin::PageController

#new, #edit (and #add_part)

• [main]
  • edit_header
  • edit_form
    • [form_top]
    • [form]
      • edit_title
      • edit_extended_metadata (@meta)
      • edit_page_parts
        • part
          • [part_controls]
        • [parts_bottom]
          • edit_layout_and_type
          • edit_timestamp
    • [form_bottom]
      • edit_buttons (@buttons_partials)
  • edit_popups
    • [popups]
• edit_scripts_and_styles

#index (#children, and #remove)

TODO

Admin::SnippetController

#new, #edit

TODO

Admin::LayoutController

#new, #edit

TODO