Registry extension set virtual page

Kirby 2 Suggestions đź’ˇ
1

From time to time I feel the need for the creation of a “virual” page. A page that is not created as textfile but only exists as code.

Use registry extension to set it:

https://getkirby.com/docs/developer-guide/plugins/registry

It could use an array similar to this one:

https://getkirby.com/docs/cheatsheet/pages/create

array(
      'title' => 'My new article',
      'date'  => '2012-12-12 22:33',
      'text'  => 'This is my new article',
      'tags'  => 'article, text, readable'
);

A use case. I create a route that read values from a database. In the current Kirby version there are two ways to show them.

1.

Use snippet or tpl::load to load a template or a snippet. The pitfall is that it is now unaware of $site, $page and $pages. I could send them as argument but then they are not remembered in other snippets along the way down.

I can not use controllers.

2.

Create a real page in the Panel and in the route use visit. The pitfall now is that I have a page in the Panel that I don’t need. The hackish way would be to hide it with CSS.

Because it’s a part of the content text file I can’t just move the plugin to another Kirby installation in the future because it’s now bound to the content as well.

Summery

If I could register a virtual page, it would be bundled with the plugin, not the content text files.

What will happend if the real content page exists? I think an existing page will always be used if it exists, just like the rest of the registry extensions.

1 Like
2

Just to clarify: You can hide a page via blueprint, at least if it has it’s own blueprint :wink:

3

Oh, forgot about that. Thanks for the info. :slight_smile:

The other problems with it still exists. With this second point it’s that I can’t bundle it with the plugin. My plugin will be dependent on the content text files.

4

It’s an interesting idea, we will keep this in mind for the future.

2 Likes
5

@jenstornell - could you explain your use case a bit more?

why do you need the virtual page? you could technically read from the db at the page you are showing right?

6

No need for the page in the Panel

I could read it on any page, yes but then I would need a page first. In my case there is no need to have the page in the panel because I’m not going to add any content to it.

I don’t need:

  • A content page folder
  • A content text file
  • A blueprint

A route is not a page

I could create a route to “emulate” a page, but in that case it’s still a route, not a page. There are many problems with this approach, for exampe that $page, and $site can’t be global in all the snippets. There are more things like, controllers don’t work etc.

Bundle with plugins

Let’s say I could have a virtual page created with my plugin.

When I move my plugin to a fresh Kirby installation, the virtual page exists magically. Else I need to create the page again in the new installation.

I think this feature could solve a lot of problems that we might not even think of yet. We might not even need to rely on routes that much.

7

Ok thanks,

I’ve jsut been getting very good at hacking kirby for my panel extension - so I was wondering if maybe I could figure something out for this, but… I would probably need a more concrete use case to test on/think about.

on the other side, I did see that in another thread someone suggested extending the templates, so maybe that would have been mine as well.

8

Thanks! :slight_smile:

But I think (hope) this feature belongs to the core.

9

Yeah, I think such a feature would be quite helpful, or at least a route feature that passes on the site and pages objects.

1 Like
10

Added it here:

11

+1 on this as I have fought a lot with this (I might have even found a solution)

2 Likes