Variable Type Widgets

Before this feature, the list widget allowed a set of fields to be repeated, but every list item had the same set of fields available. With variable types, multiple named sets of fields can be defined, which opens the door to highly flexible content authoring (even page building) in Decap CMS.

Note: this feature does not yet support default previews and requires registering a preview template in order to show up in the preview pane.

To use variable types in the list widget, update your field configuration as follows:

1. Instead of defining your list fields under fields or field, define them under types. Similar to fields, types must be an array of field definition objects.
2. Each field definition under types must use the object widget (this is the default value for widget).

Additional list widget options

• types: a nested list of object widgets. All widgets must be of type object. Every object widget may define different set of fields.
• typeKey: the name of the field that will be added to every item in list representing the name of the object widget that item belongs to. Ignored if types is not defined. Default is type.
• summary: allows customization of a collapsed list item object in a similar way to a collection summary

Example Configuration

The example configuration below imagines a scenario where the editor can add two "types" of content, either a "carousel" or a "spotlight". Each type has a unique name and set of fields.

- label: 'Home Section'
  name: 'sections'
  widget: 'list'
  types:
    - label: 'Carousel'
      name: 'carousel'
      widget: object
      summary: '{{fields.header}}'
      fields:
        - { label: Header, name: header, widget: string, default: 'Image Gallery' }
        - { label: Template, name: template, widget: string, default: 'carousel.html' }
        - label: Images
          name: images
          widget: list
          field: { label: Image, name: image, widget: image }
    - label: 'Spotlight'
      name: 'spotlight'
      widget: object
      fields:
        - { label: Header, name: header, widget: string, default: 'Spotlight' }
        - { label: Template, name: template, widget: string, default: 'spotlight.html' }
        - { label: Text, name: text, widget: text, default: 'Hello World' }

Example Output

The output for the list widget will be an array of objects, and each object will have a type key with the name of the type used for the list item. The type key name can be customized via the typeKey property in the list configuration.

If the above example configuration were used to create a carousel, a spotlight, and another carousel, the output could look like this:

title: Home
sections:
  - type: carousel
    header: Image Gallery
    template: carousel.html
    images:
      - images/image01.png
      - images/image02.png
      - images/image03.png
  - type: spotlight
    header: Spotlight
    template: spotlight.html
    text: Hello World
  - type: carousel
    header: Image Gallery
    template: carousel.html
    images:
      - images/image04.png
      - images/image05.png
      - images/image06.png