Getting the code
The code created in this tutorial is available on GitHub: https://github.com/ezsystems/TweetFieldTypeBundle.
This tutorial covers the creation and development of a custom eZ Publish Field Type.Field Types are the smallest building blocks of content. eZ Publish comes with about 30 native types that cover most common needs (Text line, Rich text, Email, Author list, Content relation, Map location, Float, etc.)
Field Types are responsible for:
Storing data, either using the native storage engine mechanisms, or specific means
Validating input data
Making the data searchable (if applicable)
Displaying Fields of this type
Custom Field Types are a very powerful type of extension, since they allow you to hook deep into the content model.
You can find the in-depth documentation about FieldTypes and their best practices. It describes how each component of a FieldType interacts with the various layers of the system, and how to implement those.
Intended audience
This tutorial is aimed at developers who are familiar with eZ Platform and are comfortable with operating in PHP and Symfony2.
Content of the tutorial
This tutorial will demonstrate how to create a Field Type on the example of a Tweet Field Type. It will:
Accept as input the URL of a tweet (https://twitter.com/<username>/status/<id>)
Fetch the tweet using the twitter oEmbed API (https://dev.twitter.com/docs/embedded-tweets)
Store the tweet’s embed contents and url
Display the tweet's embedded version when displaying the field from a template
Steps
1. The bundle
FieldTypes, like any other eZ Publish 5 extensions, must be provided as Symfony 2 bundles. This chapter will cover the creation and organization of this bundle.
Read more about Creating the bundle and structuring the bundle.
2. and 3. API
This part will cover the implementation of the eZ Publish API elements required to implement a custom FieldType
Read more about implementing the Tweet\Value class and the Tweet\Type class.
4. Converter
Storing data from any FieldType into the Legacy Storage Engine requires that your custom data is mapped to the data model.
Read more about Implementing the Legacy Storage Engine Converter.
5. Templating
Displaying a FieldType's data is done through a twig template.
Read more about implementing the FieldType template.