Content of an Article

The “Content of an article” attribute allows Contao content elements to be assigned to a MetaModels record — analogous to the content elements of a Contao article. The content is stored in the Contao table tl_content and managed via a dedicated backend widget.

Typical use cases:

• Product descriptions with complex content layouts (text, images, tables)

• Detail pages with editorially prepared content per item

• Multiple content areas per record (e.g. main content + sidebar)

In the backend, a widget appears that displays a list of the assigned content elements and provides a direct link to the content management interface.

See also

For multilingual MetaModels, the attribute Translated Content of an Article is available.

See also

This attribute is supported by the File-Usage integration. This allows the Contao file manager to display whether and where a file is embedded.

See also

The output of MetaModels lists and filters in the frontend is described on the page Content Elements/Modules for Frontend Output.

Installation

The attribute is installed via the Contao Manager or Composer:

composer require metamodels/attribute_contentarticle

Settings when Creating the Attribute

The attribute has no specific settings when creating. Only the general attribute settings are used:

• Name, column name, description

• Override variants

Settings in Render Settings

The attribute has no specific render settings. In the attribute list of a render setting, the usual options are available:

Option	Description
Template	Selection of a custom template for the output of the content elements.
CSS class	Optional CSS class added to the output element.

Settings in the Input Form

When the attribute is added to an input form, the following options are available:

Display

Option	Description
Backend class	CSS classes for the display of the field in the backend form.
Template for backend	Selection of a custom widget template for the backend form.

Note

The attribute can only be filled with content elements after the record has been saved for the first time. As long as the record has not yet been saved, a corresponding notice message appears.

Filter Rules

The “Content of an article” attribute does not support its own filter rules — content elements cannot be used as filter criteria in the frontend.

Special Functions

Storage

The content elements are not stored in the MetaModel table, but as regular Contao content elements in tl_content with the following linking fields:

• pid — ID of the MetaModels record

• ptable — name of the MetaModel table (e.g. mm_products)

• mm_slot — column name of the attribute (enables multiple article attributes per MM)

The content elements are retrieved via ContentModel::findPublishedByPidAndTable() and rendered with Controller::getContentElement().

Backend widget

In the backend form, the widget displays a list of existing content elements with type and visibility status. A link leads directly to the content element management interface. AJAX requests are updated directly in the widget container.

Duplicating records

When a MetaModels record is duplicated or pasted, the assigned content elements are automatically copied as well. MetaModels detects all contentarticle attributes and creates copies of the tl_content entries with the new pid value.

Recursion protection

The extension contains recursion protection to prevent infinite loops if content elements themselves reference MetaModels content.