Filesystem

By default all data for Total CMS is stored in a folder called tcms-data in DOCUMENT_ROOT. The location of this folder can be customized via the Total CMS configuration.

At the top level of this folder contains folders, one for each collection. The collection folder will contain a json file and folder containing assets for each object.

JSON files are used to store all Total CMS data. JSON supports complex data structures and can be manually edited if there was a need.

Collection Data

The following are the files and folder structures used to store the data for a collection

.meta.json

This file is used to store some meta data about the collection.

• id: The id of the collection
• name: The name of the collection
• description: The description of the collection
• schema: The schema that this collection conforms
• url: An optional URL that is the root URL for the object on the web.
  • This can be used to generate RSS feeds for blogs/podcasts or Sitemap files.
• properties: These are the default form labels, help text and field type
• customProperties: This allows you to override the default form values for a specific object ID.

For built-in schemas the defaults are imported from the schema file

{
    "id"          : "text",
    "name"        : "Text",
    "description" : "Collection to contain bits of text used throughout the site.",
    "schema"      : "text",
    "url"         : "",
    "properties"  : {
        "id" : {
            "label"   : "Text ID",
            "help"    : "A unique ID for this text. No spaces or special characters.",
            "field"   : "slug",
            "factory" : "slug"
        },
        "text" : {
            "label"   : "Text",
            "help"    : "Edit the text here.",
            "field"   : "textarea",
            "factory" : "paragraph"
        }
    },
    "customProperties" : {
        "myoptions" : {
            "text" : {
                "label"   : "Selectable Text Options",
                "help"    : "Select one of the options.",
                "field"    : "select",
                "settings" : {
                    "options" : [
                        "Option 1",
                        "Option 2",
                        "Option 3",
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        "aboutme" : {
            "text" : {
                "label" : "About Me",
                "help"  : "Write a little bit about yourself.",
                "field"  : "styledtext"
            }
        }
    }
}

.index.json

Just like in a database, Total CMS will allow you to define specific properties that can be index for every object in a collection. You can define the properties to be indexed inside of the collection's schema.

This file will contain a summary of every object that is within the collection. This is useful for performance so that it is quicker to retrieve an entire collection.

Not every property is added to the summary for each object. This is to keep performance as streamlined as possible. The schema for a collection defines what properties are to be added to the summary.

Object json

All of an object's data is store in a JSON file that is named with the object's ID: {id}.json

This JSON file will contain all of the data for an object.

Object Assets

All assets related to an object will be stored in sub-folders within the collection. There will be a folder named with the ID of the object. Within that folder, there will be a folder for the property of that object that stored the asset.

For example, if there was a blog post with a gallery property, the image would be stored at my-blog-post/gallery/image.jpg.

Schemas

Schemas allow us to verify the integrity of the data before it's saved into the CMS. There are default schemas that ship with Total CMS. However, you can also define your own custom schemas.

Schemas are stored as JSON files using the standard JSON Schema format.

Default Schemas

All schemas that ship with Total CMS are stored along with the source code in a schemas folder. These schemas cannot be changed via the API. You cannot create a custom collection with the same name as any of the default schemas.

Custom Schemas

You can create a custom schema when you want to define a custom business object. These custom schemas can have as many of the supported properties as you want. You get to define your own indexed and which fields get added to the collection digest.

Custom schemas will be stored inside of a .schemas folder inside the tcms-data directory.