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Create a component

Shows how to create a component that plugs in to the assets pane of the Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) edit view.

The component monitors the current page context and displays its name.

using EPiServer.Shell.ViewComposition;
  
namespace AlloyTemplates.Business
{
  [
    Component(
      //Auto-plugs in the component to the assets panel of cms (See EPiServer.Shell.PlugInArea
      //in the EPiServer.UI assembly for Dashboard and CMS constants)
      PlugInAreas = "/episerver/cms/assets",
      Categories = "cms",
      WidgetType = "alloy/components/CustomComponent",
      //Define language path to translate Title/Description.
      //LanguagePath = "/customtranslations/components/customcomponent";
      Title = "My custom component",
      Description = "A custom component that shows information about the current content item."
    )
  ]
  public class CustomComponent
  {
  }
}

And the following is the corresponding JavaScript widget:

define([
    // Dojo
    "dojo/_base/declare",
    "dojo/html",
    // Dijit
    "dijit/_TemplatedMixin",
    "dijit/_WidgetBase",
    //CMS
    "epi-cms/_ContentContextMixin"
    ], 
  function (
    // Dojo
    declare,
    html,
    // Dijit
    _TemplatedMixin,
    _WidgetBase,
    //CMS
    _ContentContextMixin
  ) 
  {
    return declare([_WidgetBase, _TemplatedMixin, _ContentContextMixin],
    {
      // summary: A simple widget that listens to changes to the
      // current content item and puts the name in a div.
    
      templateString: '<div>\
        <div data-dojo-attach-point="contentName"></div>\
      </div>',
    
      postMixInProperties: function () 
      {
        this.getCurrentContent().then(function (context) 
        {
          this._updateUI(context);
        }.bind(this));
      },
     
      contextChanged: function (context, callerData) 
      {
        this.inherited(arguments);
    
        // the context changed, probably because we navigated or published something
        this._updateUI(context);
      },
    
      _updateUI: function (context) 
      {
        html.set(this.contentName, context.name);
      }
    });
  }
);

You can find a working example on our GitHub. Just clone the repository, check out doc/how-to-create-a-component branch and run the site to see this component in action.

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