Shared Resources

Content types defined using content-type definitions alone can be large and complex, but they are also quite rigidly defined. In order to be able to write the text content of a news story or article, a more flexible structure is required. In CUE, that flexibility can be provided in two different ways:

  • By including a rich text field in the content type definition. This is the old way of creating a story content type. The rich text field is rendered as a rich text editor in CUE, and allows the user to write and format HTML content in a relatively free way. A rich text field is defined as a basic field with the MIME type application/xhtml+xml, for example:

    <field mime-type="application/xhtml+xml" type="basic" name="body">
      ...
    </field>

    This kind of content type is still supported, since there are many existing publications containing stories of this type. It is not the recommended method of creating story content types, however.

  • By using storylines and story elements. This is the recommended method for new publications.

A story element is a block-level story component such as a paragraph, a heading or an image. Different types of story element are defined in XML resource files called story element types. A storyline is a particular type of story structure that makes use of a specified set of story element types in a specified way. Storylines are defined in XML resource files called storyline templates. When a user creates a new story in CUE, the first thing he must do is select which storyline template the story is to be based on.

Story element types and storyline templates are closely related to content-type resources, and use many of the same elements and namespaces. They differ, however, in the following ways:

  • They are global resources that can be shared between many publications, and are not tied to a single publication.

  • Although users may create their own story element types and storyline templates, and often will do so, it is not absolutely necessary: a starter pack of standard story element types and storyline templates is included in the Content Store distribution.

The following standard story element types are included in the Content Store distribution:

  • Headline

  • Lead text

  • Paragraph

  • Pull quote

  • Image

  • Gallery

  • Video

  • Relation

  • Embed

together with the following standard storyline templates:

  • Blank (a permissive template that imposes no predefined structure)

  • Default (must start with a headline)

  • Strict (must start with the sequence headline, lead text, image, paragraph)