Introduction

This video tutorial introduces the view contexts and shows how to make use of them. 

If you do not know yet how to create pages and page layouts, please have a look at the Video Tutorial - Content Management System (Part 1): How to Create an own Page From Scratch first.

Catalog and product pages are the biggest part of an online store. It would be an enormous effort to maintain all of them manually. This is the reason why Intershop Commerce Management offers a View Context functionality to manage product- and category-related content.

With view contexts, it is possible to define global fallbacks that are used for all types of categories and products. This means you can define a page layout that can be applied to all pages.

However, it is also possible to define individual pages, for example for a promotion campaign.

In the view context section, there are already some predefined, system-managed view contexts. This is due to the fact that systems need to ensure that pages for the most basic store functions are available.

One of the key features of view contexts are global fallbacks. With these, it is possible to provide fallback pages for different product and category-related objects.

The following page types are covered:

• Category Page -> A page that contains at least one further subcategory
• Subcategory Page -> A category page below a root category, which contains at least one further subcategory
• Family Page -> A page that contains at least one product
• Product Page -> A page that represents the data of a product
• Product Page -> A page that represents the data of a master variation product
• Bundle Page -> Special form of a product page
• Retail Set Page -> Special form of a product page

The fallback comes into play when a specific business object is not loaded correctly. However, it can also be used to easily provide page variants to all previously mentioned page types in case you do not want to assign specific content manually.

For the following examples, let's assume we want to start a promotion campaign that will be advertised with banners on certain category pages, family pages and product pages.

References

• Video Tutorial - Content Management System (Part 1): How to Create an own Page From Scratch
• Concept - CMS - View Context

Video Tutorial

Tasks

This tutorial covers the most important information about adding content to category pages, family pages, and product pages. This includes the following tasks:

• Adding content to a category page
• Making use of the subcategory view context
• Adding content to all products of a certain category or subcategory
• Adding content to a family page 

Walkthrough

Add Content to a Category Page

First, we want to show how to add a promotional banner to a category page:

1. Switch to the inTRONICS channel. 

2. In the Catalogs section, go to Catalogs and click on the Computers standard catalog.

3. Click View Properties and switch to Content.
4. In the pages section, click New to create a new page.
5. Select Category Page and click on OK. Please make sure to use the right cartridge, namely app_sf_responsiv.

In the next step, we want to add a page variant to our newly created category page:

1. Click on the category page and on New.
2. In the form, provide the name Promotion Computers Category Page and an appropriate ID (e.g. PromotionComputersCategoryPage).

3. As the template, select Category Page.

   Info

   Expand the tree structure to find it.
4. Click OK and then Apply.

You will now find yourself on the newly created page variant Promotion Computers Category Page. In here, we want to add our promotional banner:

1. Click New in the Content Marketing slot to create a new component.
2. In the form, provide the name Promotional banner and an appropriate ID (e.g. PromotionalBanner).
3. As the template, select Image and click Apply.
4. To assign an image to the template, select the image parameter, click OK and Apply.

Browsing the storefront, you can now find the promotional banner on the Computers category page.

Make Use of the Subcategory View Context

You might have already noticed that configuring a catalog view context will display the promotional banner on all subcategory pages of the catalog. This behavior can be configured on the catalog view itself:

1. Switch to the inTRONICS channel and click on View Contexts in the Content section.
2. Click on Category View Context from the app_sf_responsive cartridge.
3. Change the value for the parameter Subcategory View Context to Subcategory Page. 

Like this, all subcategories will use the subcategory view context instead of the category view context. This allows to use individual subcategory pages. 

Add Content to All Products of a Certain Category or Subcategory

Now, we want to show how to add a promotional banner to all products in the Solid State Drives subcategory:

1. Switch to the inTRONICS channel.
2. In the Catalogs section, go to Catalogs and open the Computers standard catalog.
3. Click on Data Storage and Solid State Drives.
4. Switch to View Properties.
5. Switch to the Content tab and click New in the Pages section to create a new page.
6. Select Product page and click OK. Please make sure to use the right cartridge, namely app_sf_responsive. 

In the next step, we want to add a page variant to our newly created product page:

1. Open the product page you created.
2. Click New to create a new page variant.
3. In the form, enter the name Promotion Product Page SSD as well as an appropriate ID (e.g. PromotionProductPageSSD).
4. Select Product Page as the template, click OK and then Apply.

You will now find yourself on the newly created page variant Promotion Product Page SSD. In here, we want to add our promotional banner.

1. Go to the Base Marketing slot and click on New to create a new component.
2. In the form, provide the name Promotional banner SSD and an appropriate ID (e.g. PromotionalBannerSSD).
3. As the template, select Image and click Apply.
4. To assign an image to the template, select the image parameter, click OK and finally Apply once more.

Browsing the storefront, you can now find the promotional banner on each product page within the product subcategory Solid State Drives.

Add Content to a Family Page 

Let's assume we want to advertise the promotion for our SSDs not only on the product pages but on the SSD family page as well. For this purpose, it is possible to use a separate family page view context:

1. Switch to the inTRONICS channel and go to Catalogs in the Catalogs section.
2. Open the Computers standard catalog.
3. Click on Data Storage and Solid State Drives.
4. Switch to View Properties.
5. Switch to the Content tab and click New in the Pages section to create a new page.
6. Select Family page and click OK. Please make sure to use the right cartridge, namely app_sf_responsive.

In the next step, we want to add a page variant to our newly created family page:

1. Open the family page you created.

2. Click New to create a new page variant.

3. In the form, enter the name Promotion Family Page SSD as well as an appropriate ID (e.g. PromotionFamilyPageSSD).
4. Select Family page as the template, click OK and then Apply.

You will now find yourself on the newly created page variant Promotion Family Page SSD. In here, we want to add our promotional banner.

1. Go to the Content Marketing slot and click on New to create a new component.
2. In the form, provide the name Promotional family banner SSD and an appropriate ID (e.g. PromotionalFamilyBannerSSD).
3. As the template, select Image and click Apply.
4. To assign an image to the template, select the image parameter, click OK and finally Apply once more.

Browsing the storefront, you can now find the promotional banner on each family page within the product subcategory Solid State Drives.