Publishing the catalog

Now we can start publishing our book catalog in the public section. You can use the visual components version 1.0 to publish information in the public section. You will find these components in the Catalog drop menu of the Information Blocks group in the Components sidebar of the visual editor.

Element filter form: displays the filter form containing the specified fields. By using the filter fields, visitors can find elements (e.g. products) that satisfy their requirements.
Element Top sections: displays the specified number of elements of a certain information block section.
Elements of all sections: displays the specified number of elements (products) of an information block of the specified type (e.g. Product catalog).
Sections with total number of elements: displays the list of all sections and elements of the specified information block.
Section elements in a table: displays elements of a section or subsection of an information block in the table form.
Section elements in a list: displays a list of elements of a section or subsection of an information block.
Catalog element details: can be used to display the detailed information on the specified element of a certain information block.
List of the compared catalog elements: allows a visitor to add information block elements (e.g. products) to the element comparison list. The elements for collation may be selected from different pages. Then, a visitor can click a button or a link to go to the element comparison page.
Comparison table: inserts a comparison table containing all elements to be compared, as well as their properties. This table offers an easy way to compare the desired products.
List of linked elements: displays a list of elements of any information block which are associated in any way with elements currently being shown on a page. For example, you can display a list of compatible accessories for a mobile phone.

You can also use visual components version 2.0 to publish the information in the public section. Besides the components listed above, there is a composite component that implements a full catalog section. We shall use it to publish the created information block.

The following instructions describe how to create a full catalog section. Visitors can view a full list of products of each section and the full description on each book.

First, we create a page and add the Catalog composite component to the page. Configure it by specifying the information block type, the information block whose elements will be displayed and other parameters.

Composite components enable us to create only one page physically to have a range of pages logically. A composite component with proper settings creates a full site section (in our example a full catalog section). On the demonstration site the Catalog composite component has the following parameters:

Here are specified parameters of a page where visitors can view elements of a particular catalog section, an element details view page and other parameters.

After saving the page, we will have a full book catalog in public section.

Following the operations performed, we will have the book catalog containing pages:

top elements page;

table with the section elements;

catalog element details.

System administration