Latest How-Tos
Basic MVC in concrete5
August 16, 2010
concrete5's friendliness toward developers extends beyond blocks and add-ons. An easy-to-understand but very useful MVC syntax powers concrete5's single pages and page types, allowing for helpful separation between code and content.
Creating and Working with db.xml Files
August 11, 2010
Developer Lucas Anderson shows us how to work with concrete5's db.xml format, which are used in block and package database table creation.
Automatically Expire Pages from a Page List at a Certain Time
August 04, 2010
User pvernaglia shows us how to make articles in a page list disappear after a certain custom date. This date can differ from article to article.
Add Your Own How-To
Have you written a concrete5 how-to on your own site? Send it to us using this form and we'll include it on this page, while linking back to your page and providing attribution to you. Plus, you'll earn sweet concrete5 karma!
All How-Tos
"concrete-ize" a basic HTML theme in 8 minutes
Learn how to translate a simple HTML theme found on the web into a C5 theme, in under 8 minutes.
Make a New Block Type
Download a tutorial block type and customize it as a starting point toward building your own blocks.
Make a new Custom Attribute Type
Do you want to attach an attribute to a user, page, file or something else, but our attribute types won't quite cut it? This guide will show you how to approach it. In it you will learn to create a custom attribute type, based on the address type, to solve a real world problem.
Combining Views, Controllers, Events and Models to Create a Example Shopping Cart
A shopping cart example combining a model, a view and a controller.
Building an iPhone-Optimized Version of a concrete5 Theme
Download an iPhone-optimized concrete5 theme, and learn how to automatically display it to mobile Safari on the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
Customize a Block's Appearance
You can use custom templates as multiple view layers for any block type, creating vastly different feels and behavior for the end site visitor.
How-To: Build a Single-Page Powered Editing Interface for concrete5 Pages
Learn how to build a simple FAQ system from scratch, including a single page interface for listing and sorting entries, a single page interface for editing entries, a page list template for displaying them.
Primer: Auto-Nav Block
Learn how to build navigations in concrete5, including what the Auto-Nav does and what its options mean. Then explore some practical examples, how you can control the way it displays and links pages, and how to theme and extend it.
JavaScript, jQuery and concrete5
An introduction to integrating a wide variety of rich JavaScript functionality into the front-end of your concrete5 applications and blocks.
concrete5 Add-On Developers: Create Your Own concrete5 Demo
This article provides guidelines and code to let concrete5 add-on developers or anyone setup a concrete5 demo, complete with a limited administrative user, auto-installed packages, and locked down permissions. The demo can easily be reset at any time.
Screencast: How to Create a Client Area
10 minute screencast by dojodesign showing how to offer different content to different clients using concrete5's user profiles, advanced permissions and user groups.
File Block: Display File Type Icon next to the Download Link
User marcandre shows how to modify the built-in file block to display the icon of the type of file, as well as a link to download the file.
Integrate Google site search into concrete5
User melat0nin gives us the low-down on how to integrate Google Site Search into concrete5.
Adding Sitemap and File Manager Quick Links to Edit Bar
Member jedspurg shows us how how to add two quick shortcuts to important areas of the dashboard to the concrete5 edit bar.
SEO Tip: Redirect All Page Paths to One Ending with No Slash
Member DavidMIRV shows us how how to improve SEO by redirecting all page requests to the exact same canonical URL, regardless of whether the URL contains a trailing slash.
Another Primer on Areas and Page Types
dowdrake.com offers up an easy to understand tutorial on page types and areas.
Building Sites in Multiple Languages
User pvernaglia offers up a tutorial on how to build a site in multiple languages, and offer a language switcher widget.
Automatically Expire Pages from a Page List at a Certain Time
User pvernaglia shows us how to make articles in a page list disappear after a certain custom date. This date can differ from article to article.
Custom Footer Menus using Auto-Nav
User pvernaglia offers up a tutorial on how to build a custom, automatically reused footer menu using the Auto-Nav and some custom coding.
Built-In Attribute Reference/Cheat Sheet
concrete5 uses a number of built-in page and file attributes for difference items. This is the full list, as of 5.4.1.
New Cheat Sheet Documentation Launched
User pvernaglia gives us some useful snippets of concrete5 code, and we decided to include them on a new page in the site.
Creating and Working with db.xml Files
Developer Lucas Anderson shows us how to work with concrete5's db.xml format, which are used in block and package database table creation.
Basic MVC in concrete5
concrete5's friendliness toward developers extends beyond blocks and add-ons. An easy-to-understand but very useful MVC syntax powers concrete5's single pages and page types, allowing for helpful separation between code and content.
