Data Model

Total CMS uses a flat file system in order to store its data, instead of a database. All data is saved in json files.

Collections

A collection is a set of objects that conform to a defined schema. There are 13 out of the box pre-defined collections.

  • blog
  • color
  • date
  • depot
  • feed
  • file
  • gallery
  • image
  • number
  • podcast
  • svg
  • text
  • toggle
  • url

Objects

An object is an instance of a collection that conforms to a strict schema/definition. An object consists of an ID and any number of properties defined inside of this schema.

Properties

Properties contain the data associated with an object. A property can be one of the following types.

  • color
  • date
  • depot
  • email
  • file
  • gallery
  • id
  • image
  • list
  • menu
  • number
  • rating
  • set
  • svg
  • text
  • toggle
  • url

id

Every object must have a unique ID within a collection. This ID is used to identify the object within the Total CMS filesystem and also online. This ID will be used as a permalink/slug in order to reference it online.

color

Colors are always stored as hsla(). This provides the best flexibility for manipulating colors for the web.

date

Dates are stored as ISO8601 formatted strings.

depot

Depots are essentially a folder of files. The data stored for a depot will be an array of file properties. See the file property for what details will be collected.

email

An email is store as text. What makes this different is that the text is verified to be a properly formatted email address before saving it into the CMS.

file

A file is any file that a user want to upload. It could be a zip, svg, dmg, etc. Additional data is stored about each file that gets saved.

  • passphrase: for password protecting a file via the download API
  • size: the file size in kb
  • filename: the name of the file
  • ext: the file's extension
  • label: A user generated label
  • uploadDate: the date and time the file was uploaded
  • tags: tags used for finding and filtering files

gallery

A gallery is a set of images. The data stored for a depot will be an array of image properties. See the image property for what details will be collected.

image

Along with an image being saved to the CMS. The following data is stored.

  • alt: The alt text to be added to the image
  • exif: The following EXIF data will be extracted from the image.
    • aperture
    • caption
    • copyright
    • date
    • exposureBias
    • focalLength
    • height
    • iso
    • latitude
    • longitude
    • make
    • model
    • rating
    • shutterspeed
    • title
    • width
  • featured: set a featured toggle
  • focalpoint: where is the focal point of an image so that it gets cropped in the correct location
  • link: a URL that can be associated with an image
  • palette: a sample color palette extracted from the image
  • rating: a rating property
  • tags: for filtering/sorting
  • type: jpg, webp, png, etc
  • uploadDate: the date and time of the upload

list

A list is simply a set of strings. These could be used for all sort of things like tags, categories, or a list of associated object IDs from another collection.

menu

This will allow you to build out a multi-level navigation menu to be used on your website.

number

Store a number into the CMS. This is similar to just storing text, however, the content if verified to be a number.

rating

This give you the ability to store a rating into the CMS. A rating can contain the following data.

  • rating: the current average rating of all ratings submitted
  • max: the maximum rating that is allowed to be given
  • total: the total number of ratings given
  • counts: array of the subtotals for each rating.
  • How many 1 star, 2 star, etc.

set

A set is a collection of custom items that can themselves have a predefined set of properties. For example, a product can have multiple features. Each feature can have an SVG, title and description.

svg

SVG data is valid to be an SVG image before being saved into the CMS.

text

This can be any text. It could be plain text for a header, HTML generated from a WYSIWYG editor, copyright data added to the footer, or SEO meta data.

toggle

This is a boolean flag that will allow you to define something as true or false. You can use this to enable/disable sections on your webpage or tons of other use cases.

url

This is text data that is verified to be a URL.