Visual Builder queries

Visual Builder is a way of composing content and layout. See Visual Builder for information. When an experience is indexed in Optimizely, the layout and the data parts are merged into a composition model.

Graph schema

A composition is a structure of CompositionNode instance.

CompositionNode

CompositionNode is the base type for nodes in the composition structure. The Optimizely Graph schema for CompostitionNode is defined as:

Property	Type	Description
`type`	String	Specifies the corresponding content type for nodes with a corresponding content type. For example `BlankExperience`, `BlankSection`, `ImageElement`, `TextElement`, and so on).
`nodeType`	String	Specifies the type of node. Values are typically `experience`, `section`, `row`, `column` and `element`.
`displayName`	String	The `displayName` for the node.
`key`	String	A unique key for the node within the experience.
`displayTemplateKey`	String	Optional key specifying which Display Template is used by the node (if any).
`displaySettings`	[CompositionDisplaySetting]	An array of display settings that are defined for the node.

CompositionStructureNode

A subtype to CompositionNode that represents a structural node in the composition structure. The Optimizely Graph schema for CompositionStructureNode is defined as:

Property	Type	Description
`nodes`	[CompositionNode]	The children nodes to the current node.

CompositionElementNode

A subtype to CompositionNode that contains a VisualBuilder element. The Optimizely Graph schema for CompositionElementNode is defined as:

Property	Type	Description
`element`	_IElement	The element instance used. It can be cast to a specific element based on content type, like `ImageElement`, `TextElement`, and so on.

CompositionDisplaySetting

Represents a display setting value for a composition node. The Optimizely Graph schema for CompositionDisplaySetting is defined as:

Property	Type	Description
`key`	String	The key for the display setting. Should match a key defined in the corresponding Display Template.
`value`	String	The value for the display setting. Available values are defined in the corresponding Display Template.

Explicit Query

Content types based on Experience and Section have a property composition that contains the merged structure from the defined layout and data for the Visual Builder output. An experience composition contains a list of sections. A section is grid-based and consists of rows where each row has columns, and each column has elements. Given that structural knowledge, a query to get a composition can be specified as:

query ExplicitExperienceQuery {
  _Experience {
    items {
      composition {
        displayName
        displaySettings {
          key
          value
        }
        displayTemplateKey
        key
        nodeType
        nodes {
          displayName
          displaySettings {
            key
            value
          }
          displayTemplateKey
          key
          nodeType
          type
          ... on CompositionStructureNode {
            displayName
            displayTemplateKey
            key
            nodeType
            nodes {
              displayName
              displaySettings {
                key
                value
              }
              displayTemplateKey
              key
              nodeType
              type
              ... on CompositionStructureNode {
                displayName
                displaySettings {
                  key
                  value
                }
                displayTemplateKey
                key
                nodeType
                type
                nodes {
                  displayName
                  displaySettings {
                    key
                    value
                  }
                  displayTemplateKey
                  key
                  nodeType
                  type
                  ... on CompositionStructureNode {
                    displayName
                    displaySettings {
                      key
                      value
                    }
                    displayTemplateKey
                    key
                    nodeType
                    type
                    nodes {
                      displayName
                      displaySettings {
                        key
                        value
                      }
                      displayTemplateKey
                      key
                      nodeType
                      type
                      ... on CompositionElementNode {
                        displayName
                        displaySettings {
                          key
                          value
                        }
                        displayTemplateKey
                        key
                        nodeType
                        type
                        element {
                          ...compositionElement
                        }
                      }
                    }
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment compositionElement on _IElement {
  ... on HeadingElement {
    Heading: Body
  }
  ... on RichTextElement {
    Body {
      json
    }
  }
  ... on ImageElement {
    AltText
    Image {
      url {
        default
      }
    }
  }
}

Recursive Query

The previous explicit query is repetitive in the manner that you query for a structure node in a fixed number of nested levels (given that you know that the structure of an experience is experience/section/row/column/element). And for each level you query for all available values (type, nodetype, displaySettings, and so on). An alternative way to the previous explicit query is to write a recursive query, see Reqursive queries in the Optimizely Graph documentation for information. The analogous recursive query to the explicit query above is:

query RecursiveExperienceQuery {  
  _Experience {  
    items {  
      composition {  
        ...structureElement  
      }  
    }  
  }  
}

fragment structureElement on ICompositionNode {  
  ... on CompositionStructureNode {  
    key  
    displayName  
    type  
    nodeType  
    displayTemplateKey  
    displaySettings {  
      key  
      value  
    }  
    nodes @recursive {  
      type  
    }  
  }  
  ... on CompositionElementNode {  
    key  
    displayName  
    type  
    nodeType  
    displayTemplateKey  
    displaySettings {  
      key  
      value  
    }  
    element {  
      ...compositionElement  
    }  
  }  
}

fragment compositionElement on _IElement {  
  ... on HeadingElement {  
    Heading: Body  
  }  
  ... on RichTextElement {  
    Body {  
      json  
    }  
  }  
  ... on ImageElement {  
    AltText  
    Image {  
      url {  
        default  
      }  
    }  
  }  
}