Optimizing structure field output

Kirby 3 Solved ✅
1

Might be a stupid question :crazy_face: but working with a slightly complex structure field with some conditional fields (only visible when:…).

All fields are in the output in the .txt file. Even those that aren’t used depending on the selections you make when adding an item to the structure field. Was wondering if there is some magic to only output fields that are “visible” :grimacing: :grimacing:

Example:

blocks:
  columns:
    type:
      width: 1/2
    visibility:
      width: 1/2
  label: Blocks
  type: structure
  fields:
    type:
      default: text
      label: Type
      options:
        master: Master
        text: Text
      required: true
      type: select
    text:
      label: Text
      size: small
      type: textarea
      files:
        query: page.files.add(site.files)
    buttons:
      extends: fields/buttons
      when:
        type: master
    visibility:
      default: true
      label: Visibility
      text:
        - Hide
        - Show
      type: toggle

Here, even though you select “text”, an empty “buttons” field will be in the output.

2

Well, you would usually check if a field has content or not before you output it anyway, won’t you (if only to avoid empty HTML tags)?

Having said that, it might actually happen that a field is not empty, even though it shouldn’t be rendered (this will happen if the value of the field on which the condition depends is later changed but the old content is not removed).

So the save way of doing this is probably what I did here: https://getkirby.com/docs/cookbook/templating/menu-builder#mixed-menu-ii

3

My question was more towards the .txt output. This is purely just to reduce the file size of my .txt files hehe.

In my example the buttons field is only visible when type: master. It’s basically the idea to not export data from conditional fields when they’re not “visible”.

Blocks:

- 
  type: text
  text: This is some text.
  buttons: [ ]
  visibility: 'true'

Optimized output would be…

Blocks:

- 
  type: text
  text: This is some text.
  visibility: 'true'
4

How many entries is this field supposed to have? Asking because I wonder if it’s worth to go the extra mile and create a model that removes unused fields just to shave off a few extra bytes that don’t make a difference.

5

I’ve used the structure field to create a block system. There are several types: master, posts, slider, text…

When you add an item you start by selecting a block type. Then things below will change accordingly.

Here’s an output for two items. First one is a master block, second one is a text block. As you can see there are empty fields exported for each input.

Fields that are unique to a specific block type starts with the type name. Maybe there is a way to remove those fields when they’re not in use? For example when you select “text” as type, fields starting with master… posts… and slider… are not needed.

Blocks:

- 
  type: master
  text: This is some text.
  buttons:
    - 
      text: Sign Up
      style: primary
      link: page
      page:
        - test
      url: ""
      target: 'false'
  media:
    - 
      source: custom
      custom:
        - banner.png
      size: large
      rounded: all
  mastercolumns: two
  mastercolumnwidth: equal
  mastercolumnreverse: 'false'
  posts: ""
  postssortbydate: 'false'
  postsauthor: 'false'
  postsdate: 'true'
  postscolumns: one
  postsnumber: null
  poststags: ""
  slidermedia: [ ]
  slidercenter: 'false'
  slidercaption: 'false'
  sliderheight: ""
  sliderwidth: large
  sliderwidthcustom: ""
  align: align-left
  width: large
  paddingbottom: 'true'
  background: [ ]
  visibility: 'true'
  layoutheadline: null
- 
  type: text
  text: This is some text.
  buttons: [ ]
  media: [ ]
  mastercolumns: one
  mastercolumnwidth: equal
  mastercolumnreverse: 'false'
  posts: ""
  postssortbydate: 'false'
  postsauthor: 'false'
  postsdate: 'true'
  postscolumns: one
  postsnumber: null
  poststags: ""
  slidermedia: [ ]
  slidercenter: 'false'
  slidercaption: 'false'
  sliderheight: ""
  sliderwidth: large
  sliderwidthcustom: ""
  align: align-left
  width: large
  paddingbottom: 'true'
  background: [ ]
  visibility: 'true'
  layoutheadline: null
6

If you want my honest opinion, then the structure field is not the right choice for this use case. That’s exactly what the builder field was made for.

As I said, maybe you could exclude storing these fields in a page model, but then you would have to go through each item, check what type is set, unset all those fields… Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.

7

Is the builder field 3rd party or is it maintained by Kirby?

8

Third party.