Site:Frontend:Introduction

Getting Started

Before you master creating websites within Metrixstream, you first need to know the basics. Read through the various sections below to give you a basic understanding of how things work and then continue on to the other sections for more detailed explainations.

Backend

The backend is responsible for coming up with efficient and scalable database queries so that you can reliably use them as you create your web pages.

Throughout your site building, you will most likely never be accessing the backend directly. This is all provided for you through a context.

Context

A context is a collection of various backend queries that you have at your disposal to build each site page. Common contexts include "account content", "account profiles", "transaction history", etc.

Each page is responsible for specifying a context. A context represents what backend queries is going to be performed.

Additional Context

Pages also have the ability to specify additional contexts, which let you create a modular structure to your page, such as popular videos in the upper right, latest comments in the upper left, and staff favorite content on the rest of the page. That example would be handled by creating a primary context and then two additional contexts.

Clearsilver

Clearsilver is the mechanism used to interpret information received from a context. Information received from a context is populated into the #HDF, which you can reference using Clearsilver.

Clearsilver is a language neutral template processing engine based on the MVC (Model View Control) design pattern.

The idea behind it is that the backend processes contexts, which results in an HDF object. This object contains all the necessary information required to generate the page that you want to create.

In general Clearsilver allows you to do the following:

Output a variable from the HTML to the actual page

Hey <?cs var:MS.site.user.username ?>, welcome back to our site!

Do simple conditional logic checks with if/then statements

<?cs if:MS.site.user.loggedIn ?>
  Thank you for logging in, <?cs var:MS.site.user.username ?>.
<?cs else ?>
  Please login!
<?cs /if ?>

Properly escape variables using html, javascript, and url escaping

<script type="text/javascript">
  var username = "<?cs var:js_escape(MS.site.user.username) ?>";
</script>

<input type="text" name="username" value="<?cs var:html_escape(MS.site.user.username) ?>">

<a href="http://www.test.com/?user=<?cs var:url_escape(MS.site.user.username) ?>">click here to go to your public profile page</a>

Detailed documentation of the Clearsilver language is available here: http://www.clearsilver.net/docs/

HDF

The HDF is simply a term of a list of key-value pairs. This usually consists of content titles, player urls, image urls, user information, etc. The job of each page is to reference the HDF object through Clearsilver the template is to reference the HDF keys, so you can output the HDF values.

Example

If you are unable to create the page you want, then you either aren't using the right context, or you need a custom extension to add additional fields to the HDF. Contact support@metrixstream.com for a quick consultation on how to accomplish what you want.

If you ever aren't sure what fields are available, add &hdf to the end of your site URL. It will output all the available HDF keys.