Using Other Information about your Site on a Page

by Anne Bowtell — last modified Dec 26, 2009 04:41 PM

Contributors: Yuri Carrer

How to get information about the state of your site and other global variables.

At some point or other you'll find you need to use the title of your site in a template; or you'll want your template to deliver something depending on the roles or permissions of your visitor or user. There are two approaches for obtaining this information:

1. Browser Views (recommended)

The first, newer, and recommended approach is to use the methods available in one of three browser views:

@@plone_portal_state
@@plone_context_state
@@plone_tools

These are kept in

[your egg location]/plone/app/layout/globals OR
[your egg location]/plone.app.layout-[version]/plone/app/layout/globals

You can find a description of each method in interfaces.py in that directory, but the main methods are outlined below. This excerpt from the main_template in the core Plone Default templates in Plone 4, demonstrates how these views, or their individual methods, are made available to every page:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      ...
      tal:define="portal_state context/@@plone_portal_state;
                  context_state context/@@plone_context_state;
                  ...
                  lang portal_state/language;
                  ...
                  portal_url portal_state/portal_url;
                  ..."
     ...
>

Here's an excerpt from the newsitem_view template in the core Plone Default templates illustrating how the @@plone_context_state can be used to establish whether an item is editable or not:

        <p tal:define="is_editable context/@@plone_context_state/is_editable"
           tal:condition="python: not len_text and is_editable"
           i18n:translate="no_body_text"
           class="discreet">
            This item does not have any body text, click the edit tab to change it.
        </p>

2. Global Defines (deprecated)

The second approach has been around for a long time, but is being phased out (as it is slower) in Plone 3 and has been pretty much removed in Plone 4. This is to use a set of variables that are available to every single page.

In Plone 3:

These are called by main_template:

<metal:block use-macro="here/global_defines/macros/defines" />

If you want to investigate them further, you'll find them in

[your products directory]/CMFPlone/browser/ploneview.py.

These variables are used in a number of the default Plone templates in Plone 3 and so they are listed below alongside their equivalent in the available views.

In Plone 4:

The global_defines macro is not used at all and the variables have been entirely replaced in all Plone templates. However, should it be required, the global_defines macro is still available in the core Plone Default skin layers in the plone_deprecated folder. For more information on making a Plone 3 theme compatible with Plone 4, consult the upgrade guide.

Available Views and Methods

About the site

View @@plone_portal_state

Method	What you get	global defines
portal	Portal Object	portal
portal_title	The title of your site	portal_title
portal_url	The URL of your site	portal_url
navigation_root_path	Path of the navigation root
navigation_root_url	The URL of the navigation root	navigation_root_url
default_language	The default language of the site
language	The current language
locale	The current locale
is_rtl	Whether the site is being viewed in an RTL language	isRTL
member	The current authenticated member	member
anonymous	Whether or not the current visitor is anonymous	isAnon
friendly_types	Get a list of types that can be deployed by a user

About the current context

View @@plone_context_state

Method	what you get	global defines
current_page_url	The URL of the current page	current_page_url
current_base_url	The actual URL of the current page
canonical_object	The current object itself
canonical_object_url	The URL of the current object
view_url	The URL used for viewing the object
view_template_id	The id of the view template
is_view_template	True if the current URL refers to the standard view
object_url	The URL of the current object
object_title	The 'prettified' title of the current object
workflow_state	The workflow state of the current object	wf_state
parent	The direct parent of the current object
folder	The current folder
is_folderish	True if this is a folderish object	isFolderish
is_structural_folder	True if this is a structural folder	isStructuralFolder
is_default_page	True if this is the default page in a folder
is_portal_root	True if this is the portal root or the default page in the portal root
is_editable	True if the current object is editable	is_editable
is_locked	True if the current object is locked	isLocked
actions (Plone 4)	The filtered actions in the context. You can restrict the actions to just one category.
portlet_assignable (Plone 4)	Whether or not the context is capable of having locally assigned portlets.

Tools

view @@plone_tools

method	what you get	global defines
actions	The portal actions tool	atool
catalog	The portal_catalog tool
membership	The portal_membership tool	mtool
properties	The portal_properties tool
syndication	The portal_syndication tool	syntool
types	The portal_types tool
url	The portal_url tool	utool
workflow	The portal_workflow tool	wtool