mvo/contao-group-widget

Adds a new group widget that allows repeating a set of DCA fields.

v1.5.12 2025-10-01 07:45 UTC

Requires

• php: >=7.4
• contao/core-bundle: ^4.9 || ^5.0
• doctrine/collections: ^1.4 || ^2.1
• doctrine/dbal: ^2.12 || ^3.0
• doctrine/inflector: ^1.4 || ^2.0
• doctrine/orm: ^2.6
• psr/container: ^1.0 || ^2.0
• symfony/config: ^4.4 || ^5.0 || ^6.0 || ^7.0
• symfony/dependency-injection: ^4.4 || ^5.0 || ^6.0 || ^7.0
• symfony/http-foundation: ^4.4 || ^5.0 || ^6.0 || ^7.0
• symfony/http-kernel: ^4.4 || ^5.0 || ^6.0 || ^7.0
• symfony/property-access: ^4.4 || ^5.0 || ^6.0 || ^7.0
• twig/twig: ^2.7 || ^3.0

Requires (Dev)

• bamarni/composer-bin-plugin: ^1.4
• contao/manager-plugin: ^2.0
• phpunit/phpunit: ^9.5
• symfony/cache: ^5.4 || ^6.0 || ^7.0

Conflicts

• contao/manager-plugin: <2.0 || >=3.0

MIT

• Moritz Vondano

• group
• multi
• repeat
• widget
• contao
• dca

README

This Contao CMS extension provides an input type group that allows repeatable groups of fields in the backend. The resulting data is either stored as a serialized array or in a custom entity relationship (ORM).

Design decisions / Limitations

The group element widgets are still 'first class citizens' of the respective DCA. Only their definition will be made on the fly. This way we're not messing with the act of rendering and state of the displayed child widgets. As a result, adding new elements via the plus button will submit the current DCA form to add the new element.

Visual reordering of elements is done via the CSS order property. This way iframes can be kept alive (the DOM won't change) which is especially helpful when dealing with components like the tinyMCE rich text editor.

Documentation

• Data definition
• Storage backends
  • Serialized storage (default)
  • Entity storage
  • Extending

TLDR;

Just give me an example, ok?

$GLOBALS['TL_DCA']['tl_content']['fields']['my_group'] = [
    'inputType' => 'group',
    'palette' => ['amount', 'singleSRC', 'text'],   
    'fields' => [
        'amount' => [ // additional field, defined inline
            'inputType' => 'text',
            'eval' => ['tl_class' => 'w50'],
        ],
        '&singleSRC' => [ // let's change some properties of the existing field
            'eval' => ['mandatory' => false],
        ]   
    ],   
    
    // force at least 1, at max 5 elements
    'min' => 1,
    'max' => 5,
    
    // disable ordering (on by default)
    'order' => false,
    
    // store serialized into a blob (default storage backend)
    'sql' => [
        'type' => 'blob',
        'length' => \Doctrine\DBAL\Platforms\MySQLPlatform::LENGTH_LIMIT_BLOB,
        'notnull' => false,
    ],
];