This route is for those who are creating a Siteglide module which adds database functionality to Siteglide. It shows how SiteBuilder compatible layouts can be included within the module itself.
Through this route, you can create layouts for your module for any existing themes which allow extension. For example, you may add either Flowbite or Bootstrap layouts for your module to cater for both sets of users.
If a theme-creator does not generally allow extension, please contact them to see if they would consent to allow you to extend their theme.
We'll add both a commented example you can look at on Github and an explanation here.
The first step is to register your module in the Siteglide marketplace in order to receive your module's Siteglide marketplace ID (if you haven't already). You'll need to reference this ID in several places, so make a note of it.
To start with, you just need to fill out the required fields. Add a name and set the type to "module", write a short description and initial version e.g. 0.1.0.
The "Vanity ID" will then appear. This is the unique ID that can be used across the marketplace to refer to your module.
Most of the files in your module will be in the private folder so SiteBuilder won't know they're there unless it knows where to look. You'll next need to create the following file at the public path: modules/module_<module_vanity_id>/public/views/partials/sitebuilder/module_registry.liquid to make your module available to SiteBuilder.
The placeholder <module_vanity_id> should be replaced by the vanity ID that Siteglide gave you earlier.
While most of your module files will sit in the private folder, Liquid allows developers to access private files if they know their filepaths.
To give an optional extra level of protection to your intellectual property, you can register your module with Sitegurus in return for a secret key. We'll give you this secret key and associate it with your module vanity ID so that SiteBuilder can find your files, but your users can't. When you're given your secret key, the /sitebuilder/ folder will be replaced in your file structure with /sitebuilder_<secret_key>/
Do bear in mind that this system isn't perfect and we cannot guarantee that Liquid errors will not expose this key. We recommend careful testing to avoid errors with each new version.
If your module is open-source or you want to keep things simple, feel free to skip this section.
To configure the module and help SiteBuilder understand at a high level what content it contains, you need to create a file at the following path:
modules\module_<module_vanity_id>/private/views/partials/sitebuilder<secret_key_preceded_by_underscore>/module_config.liquid. If you skipped the last section, you would keep the "/sitebuilder/" folder without an underscore or secret key.
Note that this file is a liquid file and allows Liquid syntax, but at runtime will compile to a JSON file. This means you must write the syntax so that the end result validates as JSON or risk introducing Liquid errors into the module as a whole. Comments can be added as Liquid comments (as we have used), as these will be removed at runtime.
Modules without sub-modules example
Here is an example of the Blog module's configuration which does not have sub-modules. You should always provide a "default" sub-module instead of the list in the example above.
Modules with non-standard parameters in their Liquid Tags
The following example shows the configuration for the "Headers" sub_module within the built-in Menu Module. Since the Siteglide Liquid tag offers slightly different parameters from a normal module tag, the settings must be configured to reflect this.
We will only comment on the parts of this example which are different from the previous example. Return to the previous example for an explanation of the other keys.
While layout code is stored in files in your main file structure, the layout_config liquid file is needed to give SiteBuilder the metadata it needs to display these layouts in the UI, find the files it needs and install them to the correct folders.
These instructions are mostly the same whether you are a module or a theme creator, so from here we'll link you to the joint documentation on configuring layouts. Just note that for module creators, you would normally only link layouts back to your module vanity ID and submodule ID.
If you wanted to add for example a front-end eCommerce layout for users to buy the content in a courses module, you could harness sub-modules to achieve this.