Fieldtypes

Fieldtypes can also be generated quickly by the Command Line Interface (CLI). Refer to the make:addon command for more information.

Basic File Structure

All fieldtypes should be placed into the system/user/addons folder in a package and be named after that package name. So in a packaged named google_maps the fieldtype file will be ft.google_maps.php. All fieldtypes must inherit from the EE_Fieldtype base class and they must provide an $info array with a name and version number.

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Google_maps_ft extends EE_Fieldtype {

    var $info = array(
        'name'      => 'Google Maps',
        'version'   => '1.0'
    );

    // --------------------------------------------------------------------

    function display_field($data)
    {
        return form_input(array(
            'name'  => $this->field_name,
            'id'    => $this->field_id,
            'value' => $data
        ));
    }
}
// END Google_maps_ft class

/* End of file ft.google_maps.php */
/* Location: ./system/user/addons/google_maps/ft.google_maps.php */

Note: All add-ons are required to have an addon.setup.php file. This is where Fieldtypes can declare their compatibility with other Fieldtypes, allowing a site builder to switch an existing field to another compatible type, e.g. text can be switched to email and vice-versa. Please see Fieldtype Compatibility Options for more details.

We also have Example fieldtype with annotations for your reference.

Development Reference

Class Variables

class EE_Fieldtype

The base class provides a handful of base variables:

EE_Fieldtype::$id

The field identifier (unique for the current content type).

EE_Fieldtype::$name

The field name, used for the tag names.

EE_Fieldtype::$content_id

The unique id of the parent content that contains this field. Not available in install, settings, or other non-content environments.

EE_Fieldtype::$content_type

EE_Fieldtype::$settings

The field settings array

EE_Fieldtype::$field_id

Alias for id

EE_Fieldtype::$field_name

Alias for name

Note: Allowing fields to be used as tag pairs requires some extra processing to reduce the parsing overhead. So if you want to create such a field, you need to explicitly tell the parser to pre-parse these pairs:

EE_Fieldtype::$has_array_data

TRUE if the field can be used as a tag pair

EE_Fieldtype::$entry_manager_compatible

true if the field should be displayed as an Entry Manager column in the Control Panel.

Note: when setting public $entry_manager_compatible = true; make sure that your fieldtype also implements the renderTableCell method.

EE_Fieldtype::$supportedEvaluationRules

Array of supported evaluation rules when field is used as conditional (or null if the field cannot be used as condtional source). If omitted, default rules set will be used.

EE_Fieldtype::$defaultEvaluationRule

Default evaluation rule to pre-select when adding field conditions. Optional.

Function Reference

class EE_Fieldtype

EE_Fieldtype::id()

Getter for id.

EE_Fieldtype::name()

Getter for name.

EE_Fieldtype::content_id()

Getter for content_id.

EE_Fieldtype::content_type()

Getter for content_type.

EE_Fieldtype::row($key[, $default = NULL])

Accessor for the current content type parent row. In the case of channel entries, this would be current entry row. If the key is not found, the value given in default is returned. Not all content types have all row keys.

EE_Fieldtype::install()

Installs the fieldtype and sets initial global settings. Can return an array of global variables.

EE_Fieldtype::uninstall()

Handle any cleanup needed to uninstall the fieldtype. Channel data is dropped automatically.

EE_Fieldtype::display_field($data)

Used to render the publish field.

EE_Fieldtype::renderTableCell($data, $field_id, $entry)

Display the field data as column in the Entry Manager

EE_Fieldtype::validate($data)

Validates the field input

EE_Fieldtype::save($data)

Preps the data for saving

EE_Fieldtype::post_save($data)

Handles any custom logic after an entry is saved.

Called after an entry is added or updated. Available data is identical to save. This is a good method to implement if you need the content ID of the fieldtype’s newly-saved parent content type.

EE_Fieldtype::delete($ids)

Handles any custom logic after an entry is deleted.

Called after one or more entries are deleted.

EE_Fieldtype::pre_loop($data)

Before the tag is rendered on the frontend, this function is called to pass field data for the entire channel entries loop to the fieldtype for preprocessing or caching. This function is useful when your fieldtype needs to query the database to render its tag. Instead of querying with each loop of the channel entries tag, all data needed can be gathered up front, therefore reducing queries and loadtime needed.

EE_Fieldtype::replace_tag($data[, $params = array()[, $tagdata = FALSE]])

Replace the field tag on the frontend.

EE_Fieldtype::display_settings($data)

Display the settings page.

EE_Fieldtype::validate_settings($data)

Validate fieldtype settings. In this method, you can use the Validation Service to ensure values entered in your settings form are valid. Here is an example from our File field:

function validate_settings($data)
{
    $validator = ee('Validation')->make(array(
        'allowed_directories' => 'required|allowedDirectories'
    ));

    $validator->defineRule('allowedDirectories', array($this, '_validate_file_settings'));

    return $validator->validate($settings);
}

Callbacks may be specified as well, as you see above we are calling a method called _validate_file_settings to ensure upload destinations exist before creating a new file field.

EE_Fieldtype::save_settings($data)

Save the fieldtype settings.

EE_Fieldtype::settings_modify_column($data)

Allows the specification of an array of fields to be added, modified or dropped when fields are created, edited or deleted.

By default, when a new field is created, 2 fields are added to the exp_channel_data table. The content field (field_id_x) is a text field and the format field (field_ft_x) is a tinytext NULL default. You may override or add to those defaults by including an array of fields and field formatting options in this method. For example, the date file type requires an additional field_dt_x field and different content field type:

function settings_modify_column($data)
{
    $fields['field_id_'.$data['field_id']] = array(
        'type'      => 'INT',
        'constraint'    => 10,
        'default'   => 0
        );

    $fields['field_dt_'.$data['field_id']] = array(
        'type'      => 'VARCHAR',
        'constraint'    => 8
        );

    return $fields;
}

EE_Fieldtype::post_save_settings($data)

Do additional processing after the field is created/modified.

$this->settings is fully available at this stage.

EE_Fieldtype::display_global_settings()

Display a global settings page. The current available global settings are in $this->settings.

EE_Fieldtype::save_global_settings()

Save the global settings. Return an array of global settings.

EE_Fieldtype::pre_process($data)

Preprocess the data on the frontend. Multiple tag pairs in the same weblog tag will cause replace_tag to be called multiple times. To reduce the processing required to extract the original data structure from the string (i.e. unserializing), the pre_process function is called first.

Content Type Independence

Fieldtypes can be used to describe fields in many different types of content. For most fieldtypes adding support simply means overriding the ~EE_Fieldtype::accepts_content_type method to always return TRUE.

EE_Fieldtype::accepts_content_type($name)

Returns TRUE or FALSE based on whether or not the content type is supported. By default all fieldtypes support the channel content type.:

public function accepts_content_type($name)
{
  return ($name == 'channel');
}

However, if your fieldtype stores its own data, then you must make sure to clearly separate the data by content type. You can do this by accessing the current content type with the ~EE_Fieldtype::content_type getter method, and using it as an additional parameter everywhere you store or retrieve data.

You must also handle the complete out removal of a content type.

EE_Fieldtype::unregister_content_type($name)

Remove a content type from the current fieldtype.

If your fieldtype creates columns or tables dynamically, you may also want to implement the opposite case of when a fieldtype is added.

EE_Fieldtype::register_content_type($name)

Add a content type from the current fieldtype.

Grid Fieldtype Development

In order to make your fieldtypes compatible with Grid, a few more methods as well as Javascript callbacks are available.

To make your fieldtype recognized by Grid as a Grid-compatible fieldtype, you need to modify your implementation of ~EE_Fieldtype::accepts_content_type to accept the grid content type. For example:

public function accepts_content_type($name)
{
    return ($name == 'channel' || $name == 'grid');
}

Once that’s done, your fieldtype will show up in the list of fieldtypes available for use when setting up a new Grid column.å

Grid Fieldtype Events

All of the regular fieldtype methods (display_field(), replace_tag(), etc.) are available prefixed with “grid_“ for special handling when being used in the context of the Grid field, with a few exceptions noted below. For example:

// Only called when being used as a normal fieldtype:
public function display_field($data)
{
    // Display code
}

// Only called when being rendered in a Grid field cell:
public function grid_display_field($data)
{
    // Display code for Grid cell
}

However, if a fieldtype does NOT implement grid_display_field(), Grid will call display_field() to display the field’s form in the cell. This applies to all fieldtype methods except for the following:

The idea is that most fieldtypes should be able to use the same code to handle their field operations for both Grid and the normal publish form, but if not, you can easily override the behavior and run special operations when in the context of Grid.

If you use grid_* methods, you may want to look for ways to refactor your fieldtype where there is overlapping logic to run. For example, some of our native fieldtypes require slightly different code to render the HTML needed to display fields in display_field() and grid_display_field(), so we try to centralize the the common logic between them for better code maintainability.

Grid Fieldtype Settings Class Property

When your fieldtype is in the context of Grid, it will have a few more items available to you in your fieldtype’s $settings class property.

These are accessed as array keys of your $settings class property like so:

$this->settings['col_id'];

Grid Javascript Events

Several Javascript events are fired on certain actions to let your fieldtypes know when those actions have taken place. Here is an overview.

To bind an event, use the below Javascript as an example:

Grid.bind("date", "display", function(cell)
{
    // Act on event
});

Here are the usage details for this function:

Grid.bind(fieldtype, event, callback)

A jQuery object of the cell being affected by the current event (or settings form in the case of displaySettings) is passed to the callback function. There are a few data attributes available on the cell object such as fieldtype, column-id and row-id (row-id will be undefined for new rows). Plus since it’s a jQuery object, you have all DOM traversal methods available to act upon.

Fluid Fieldtype Development

To make your fieldtype recognized by Fluid fields as a compatible fieldtype, you need to modify your implementation of accepts_content_type to accept the fluid_field content type. For example:

public function accepts_content_type($name)
{
    return ($name == 'channel' || $name == 'fluid_field');
}

Once that’s done, your fieldtype will show up in the list of fieldtypes available for use when setting up a new Fluid field.

Fluid Fieldtype Settings Class Property

When your fieldtype is in the context of Fluid field, it will have an additional item available to you in your fieldtype’s $settings class property.

This is accessed as array keys of your $settings class property like so:

$this->settings['fluid_field_data_id'];

Fluid Javascript Events

Several Javascript events are fired on certain actions to let your fieldtypes know when those actions have taken place. Here is an overview.

To bind an event, use the below Javascript as an example:

FluidField.on("date", "add", function(element)
{
    // Act on event
});

Here are the usage details for this function:

FluidField.on(fieldtype, event, callback)

A jQuery object of the field being affected by the current event is passed to the callback function.

Note: Please refer to Enhanced Fieldtype Features page for advanced topics, such ad working with Live Preview, Entry Manager, Entry Cloning, File Picker and Conditional Fields.

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