README

General description

Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core (explayouts_content_browser_core) provides the content browser core backend services for Exponential Layouts on Exponential Legacy / Exponential 6. It ships a backend class that lists direct children of a location, searches a subtree and loads single items, with optional content class filtering — the layer that the content browser UI talks to.

This extension is an Exponential Legacy port inspired by netgen/content-browser (the backend layer of the content browser stack). It depends on explayouts_content_browser because it returns expLayoutsContentBrowserItem objects, and it provides the following capabilities:

Location child listing - Use this feature to list the direct (depth 1) children of any location as normalized items, sorted by name.
Subtree search - Use this feature to search a subtree with multi-term, case-insensitive matching against node names, class identifiers and class names.
Content class filtering - Use this feature to restrict which content classes are listed and selectable via a constructor argument.
Single item loading - Use this feature to load one node as a normalized item, guarded by a selectable-class check.

Features

The following features are provided by the Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core extension:

A single, focused backend class, expLayoutsContentBrowserCoreBackend, constructed with two optional arguments:
- allowedContentTypes — content class identifiers that are listed and selectable; with an empty list, every content class is selectable and no class filter is applied.
- locationContentTypes — class identifiers treated as locations (reserved for expandable-location detection in tree UIs; accepted and stored, currently unused).
Real tree-browser stepping: getSubItems( $locationNodeId, $offset = 0, $limit = 25 ) returns the direct child nodes (depth 1) of a location as expLayoutsContentBrowserItem[], sorted by name and filtered by the allowed content classes, with getSubItemsCount( $locationNodeId ) returning the matching child count.
Multi-term subtree search: searchItems( $searchText, $locationNodeId = 0, $offset = 0, $limit = 25 ) searches the subtree under a location (up to depth 10, at most 1000 fetched nodes; falls back to the tree root when no location is given). Every whitespace-separated term must match the node name, class identifier or class name as a case-insensitive substring.
searchItemsCount( $searchText, $locationNodeId = 0 ) for counting search results (re-runs the search without a page limit — cache the value if you call it repeatedly in one request).
Guarded item loading: loadItem( $nodeId ) loads a single node as an expLayoutsContentBrowserItem only if it exists and passes the selectable-class check, and returns false otherwise.
Designed-for-subclassing internals — the behaviour lives in protected hook methods so integrators can extend without forking:
- buildItem( eZContentObjectTreeNode $node ) — return a richer/custom item object for every result.
- nodeMatchesSearch( $node, $searchText ) — change the matching rules (e.g. include attribute values).
- isSelectable( $node ) — add permission or state checks to loadItem().
- applyAllowedContentTypes( &$params ) — change how the class filter is translated to fetch parameters.
Works everywhere the bootstrap is available: module views, JSON endpoints, layout block handlers and CLI scripts.

Version

The current version of Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core is 1.0.0
Last Major update: July 30, 2026

Copyright

Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core is copyright 1998 - 2026 7x
See: LICENSE.md for more information on the terms of the copyright and license

License

Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The complete license agreement is included in the LICENSE.md file.

Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License or at your option a later version.

Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

The GNU GPL gives you the right to use, modify and redistribute Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core under certain conditions. The GNU GPL license is distributed with the software, see the file LICENSE.md.

It is also available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core in LICENSE.md. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Using Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core under the terms of the GNU GPL is free (as in freedom).

For more information or questions please contact info@se7enx.com

Requirements

The following requirements exist for using the Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core extension:

Exponential version

Make sure you use Exponential 6 / Exponential Legacy.

PHP version

Make sure you have PHP 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 or 8.4.

Extension dependencies

explayouts_content_browser — provides the expLayoutsContentBrowserItem value object returned by the backend. Activate it first.

Installation

Installation is the standard extension procedure: place the extension in extension/explayouts_content_browser_core, activate it after its dependency via ActiveExtensions[] (or ActiveAccessExtensions[] for a single siteaccess), regenerate autoloads with php bin/php/ezpgenerateautoloads.php -e and clear caches with php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-all --purge --allow-root-user.

See INSTALL.md for the complete step-by-step installation instructions.

Usage

The extension ships one key class:

Class	File	Purpose
`expLayoutsContentBrowserCoreBackend`	`classes/explayoutscontentbrowsercorebackend.php`	Child listing, subtree search and single-item loading with class filters

A quick example:

<?php
$backend = new expLayoutsContentBrowserCoreBackend(
    array( 'article', 'folder' ),  // allowed/selectable content class identifiers
    array( 'folder' )              // class identifiers treated as locations (reserved)
);

$items = $backend->getSubItems( 43, 0, 25 );
$total = $backend->getSubItemsCount( 43 );
?>

Searching a subtree and loading a picked item:

<?php
$items = $backend->searchItems( 'annual report', 43, 0, 20 );
$total = $backend->searchItemsCount( 'annual report', 43 );

$item = $backend->loadItem( 123 ); // expLayoutsContentBrowserItem or false
?>

Compared to expLayoutsContentBrowser in the sibling extension, this backend adds depth-1 child listing (a real tree browser step), content class filtering via the constructor, multi-term search against name plus class identifier and class name, and a selectable-class check in loadItem().

The full usage guide in doc/USAGE.md covers the complete API, usage scenarios (paged location browsers in module views, JSON search endpoints, resolving picked items in layout block handlers, CLI usage) and the three customization layers of this stack: the settings layer (the INI configuration cascade), the template layer (design overrides — rendering belongs to consumers such as explayouts_content_browser_ui) and the PHP layer (the protected hook methods listed above).

Documentation

Document	Description
INSTALL.md	Requirements, dependencies and step-by-step activation instructions
doc/USAGE.md	Full API reference, usage scenarios and the settings/template/PHP customization layers
doc/FAQ.md	Frequently asked questions and answers
doc/TODO.md	Known gaps and planned improvements
doc/SUPPORT.md	Where and how to get help
LICENSE.md	The complete GNU General Public License agreement

Troubleshooting

Read the FAQ

Some problems are more common than others. The most common ones are listed in doc/FAQ.md.

Use our support systems

If you find a bug or defect, please report it to the Exponential Layouts Content Browser Core: Issue Tracker
For commercial support and custom development please visit se7enx.com

se7enxweb / explayouts-content-browser-core

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