How to insert a path field in schema?

Question

Requirement : Provide a Field in a Schema which can be used to link a particular Page.

A Component Link can be a option, but I think we cannot link a particular Page with this field.

I need to provide a Page Select option like in component link.

Do we have any out of the box functionality?

Answer 1

Tridion doesn't have 'page links' it uses component links. This makes sense if you think about how you separate the components (content) and structure (pages) in different publications. you link / relate one component to another.

You then can build the linking rules and logic into your templates. Tridion can then also own broken links to stop them happening - a very powerful thing!

I've seen GUI extensions floating around to support page linking, but personally i think this introduces a lot of problems and highlights that the site builders didn't understand the power of component linking.

Answer 2

Manoj,

I really want to understand why you really need that; Tridion does not have the functionality that you are looking for OOTB, and there is a valid reason for that. Please see my points below:

1. If you want to link to a page maintained outside the Tridion, make a schema field of type - External Link
2. If you want to link to a page maintained in Tridion, make a component link to a component on that page
3. If you have this component put on multiple page, then there must be some unique component available on either page -Link accordingly - If not - I can not visualize a case where you have multiple pages with all the same component available on it i.e. Same content shown on different pages in (probably) different styles
4. Regardless, If you have a component associated on multiple pages with same template or same template priorities -The component link will still work based on an internal complex algorithm of Tridion based on a variety of factor like depth of the page in the hierarchy .i.e. traverse distance from the Root Structure Group, Parent Child Relationship among pages' structure group and many more (unknown to me at least). For Example: Say if you have Page A and Page B with same component presentation, and the path of the Page A is \root\PageA and that of B is \root\B\Page B, then the component link will return the path of Page A.

Answer 3

I can tell you that I wish it was that simple. What you're asking for is not Page linking (which would be relatively easy to do in the Tridion Core). What you're really asking for is cross-publication linking, which is next to impossible to achieve in Blueprinting.

That said, I commonly implement a set of "dummy" components for special pages, these components use a Component Template that provides a blank output, and only exist on a specific page. This allows the editors to "link to a page" by linking to a component that only exists on that specific page.

Answer 4

Manoj.

With regards your question on Dynamic Linking I'd recommend this Alvin's post at http://www.createandbreak.net/2012/05/how-to-remember-tridion-dynamic-linking.html

Answer 5

This can be achieved by using a Custom URL (on a text field) and an extension available on SDL Tridion World: Item Selector Custom URL eXtension. By clicking the description of the field, the user can open a tree view and browse to the item (page) he or she wants to select and click it. The URI of the selected page is then stored in the field and you can use this in your template(s).

The extension is available for both Tridion 2011 and Tridion 2013. For Tridion 2013, a small code update is required, which is explained on SDL Tridion World.

Answer 6

Create an application and use tom.net api to show structure group on the web page. deploy this application in your tridion website on CMS server. on Path website/Web/Extension. And use Javascript to set the value in the text field. In your application just code to find the published path of selected by the author and set the value of text field in your component.