As a website operator who deeply understands the operation of AnQiCMS, I know that content plays a core role in digital marketing and user experience.An efficient content management system, one of its greatest values is its ability to flexibly adapt to the needs of content display in various business scenarios.AnQiCMS in this aspect performs excellently, its 'flexible content model' is the key tool for us to achieve this goal.

AnQiCMS Flexible Content Model Core Value

AnQiCMS's core advantage is one of its highly flexible content model.In daily operations, the types of content we face are far more than simple articles.From corporate press releases, product details, service introductions to recruitment information, event previews, each type of content has its unique structure and display requirements.The traditional CMS often provides fixed content types, leading operators to have to adapt to these limitations through makeshift or compromising methods, which in turn affects content quality and user experience.AnQiCMS by allowing users to customize content models, completely solves this pain point.It gives us the ability to create content structures that are closely aligned with business logic, ensuring that each piece of content is presented to the target audience in the most appropriate and effective way.This personalized customization capability greatly enhances the adaptability of the system, meeting the diverse needs of various enterprises and content operation teams.

Steps and Practices for Building Custom Content Models

In AnQiCMS, the customization of content models starts from the 'Content Model' management interface on the backend.System provides "Article Model" and "Product Model" as the basic, but this is just the starting point.We can create a brand new content model based on actual business needs and define dedicated fields for it.

When we decide to create a new model, the first thing we need to define is its basic properties.This includes an easily identifiable "model name" (such as "real estate model", "activity model"), as well as a "model table name" used for storage in the database (it must be in English lowercase letters to ensure the standardization of internal system data).At the same time, setting a 'URL alias' is also very important, which will be used in pseudo-static rules and affect the URL structure of the front-end page, having a direct impact on SEO optimization.Moreover, setting the "title name

The true flexibility lies in adding "Custom Fields for Content Models" to each content model.These fields form the skeleton of the content model, allowing us to define it finely according to the specific properties of the content.For a 'product model', in addition to the title and main content, we may also need fields such as 'price', 'stock', 'brand', 'model', etc.; while for a 'real estate model', we would need 'house type', 'area', 'location', 'broker contact information', etc.

  • Single Line Text: Suitable for short text input, such as product models, contact phone numbers.
  • Number：适用于价格、库存、面积等数字型数据。
  • Multi-line text：适用于详细描述、产品特点等较长文本。
  • Single selection：such as 'Gender' (male/female/secret), 'Property Type' (residential/commercial/office building), the user can only select one option.
  • Multiple selection：such as 'Product Features' (waterproof/dustproof/shockproof), users can select multiple options.
  • Drop-down selection：Similar to single-choice, but presented in a dropdown menu format, suitable for situations with many options, such as "city" and "color".

When defining these custom fields, we can also set 'Required' to ensure data integrity, and provide 'Default Value' to simplify content entry.For selection fields, default values are entered one option per line, and the system will automatically parse them.

Content model is linked with categories and content.

When we 'publish documents' in the background, we first select its category.The system will automatically load the corresponding custom fields based on the content model bound to the selected category.Thus, when operators fill in the content, they can see all the predefined fields related to the content type, greatly improving the accuracy and efficiency of content entry.For example, if the category of "Real Estate Model

AnQiCMS supports the ability to specify individual templates for categories and documents, for example, “{category model}/list.html” is used for category list pages, or for specific documents, “download.html” and so on.This mechanism combines with the content model, enabling highly customized layouts and styles on the front-end page after the content is published, based on its type and category.

The display and rendering of front-end templates

Presenting custom content model data on the website front end is an important part of AnQiCMS template design. AnQiCMS uses syntax similar to the Django template engine,{{变量}}Output data,{% 标签 %}Control logic,

In the template, we can use a series of powerful tags to call the data of the content model:

  • archiveDetailtags：Used to display the content of a single document on the detail page. We can directly access standard fields, and more importantly, custom fields can be accessed through{{archive.文档字段}}.{% archiveDetail with name="自定义字段名" %}The way to flexibly call. If you need to iterate through all custom fields,archiveParamsthe tag provides a convenient way to loop output, such as displaying the full parameter list of the product.
  • archiveListtags：Used to display multiple documents on a list page. Each in the loopitemrepresents a document, and we can use{{item.Title}}/{{item.Link}}Access its basic information, as well as its custom fields. In addition,archiveListSupports filtering and sorting by various conditions such as model ID, category ID, and recommended attributes, even providing pagination features to meet complex content display requirements.
  • categoryDetailandcategoryListtagsThese tags make the classification itself part of the content display. We can obtain the title, description, thumbnail, and even the custom fields of the bound content model.categoryListMore commonly used to build multi-level navigation and content aggregation pages, for example, on an e-commerce website, we can first list product categories, and then display the corresponding product lists according to the subcategories under each category.

Combining these tags, we can create unique frontend display logic for each custom content model.For example, a detailed page of a 'product model' can be designed with a product carousel on the left, displaying the product name, price, and custom parameters (such as color and size), and a detailed product description below; while a list page of a 'real estate model' can display a thumbnail, layout, area, and price for each listing, and provide a filtering function.

Application and value demonstration in business scenarios

AnQiCMS's flexible content model shows excellent value in various business scenarios:

  • Enterprise website：In addition to conventional news articles, we can create a 'Team Members' model, which includes fields such as name, position, introduction, avatar, etc.; and create a 'Success Stories' model, which includes fields such as case name, description, pictures, customer reviews, etc.
  • E-commerce Platform：Create customized 'product models' for different types of goods, for example, 'clothing models' can have 'size', 'color', 'material' fields, and 'electronic product models' can have 'processor', 'memory', 'storage' fields to ensure complete and accurate product information.
  • Real estate agency：Create the 'property model', define fields such as 'house type', 'area', 'floor', 'orientation', 'location', 'school district', 'facilities', etc., and can upload multiple pictures for each property to achieve professional property information display and filtering.
  • Educational Training Institution：Create the "course model
  • Activity release platformCreate an 'Event Model' that includes event topic, time, location, organizer, detailed introduction, registration link, event poster, etc.

Through these custom content models, we can not only organize and manage massive amounts of content more effectively, but also provide users with a more customized, more attractive browsing experience.The structured content also provides a solid foundation for SEO optimization, allowing search engines to better understand and index our content.

Summary

The "Flexible Content Model" of AnQi CMS is one of its core competitive advantages as an enterprise-level CMS.It is not just a feature, but an empowerment that allows website operators to break free from the constraints of traditional CMS, and create highly customized, feature-rich website content according to the ever-changing business needs.From defining data structures to front-end display, AnQiCMS provides a complete and efficient solution that helps us achieve the best content operation effect at the lowest cost, thus standing out in the fierce market competition.

Common Questions (FAQ)

Does AnQiCMS support the definition of multilingual fields for its content model?AnQiCMS supports the switching and display of multilingual content, with its core multilingual features more体现在网站层面的内容展示（如多语言站点、页面内容切换）。For a custom content model's specific field, although the system does not directly provide a 'multilingual field' type, we can indirectly achieve multilingual display by creating multiple custom fields (such as 'Product Name - Chinese', 'Product Name - English') or by combining the multi-site management feature to configure different content for different language sites.

Is it possible to change the category bound to a custom content model after creating it?Once a category (especially a top-level category) is bound to a specific content model, the model can no longer be changed directly.This is because the content model defines the structure of all content under this category, changing the model may result in data incompatibility or loss.If it is indeed necessary to change, it is usually recommended to create a new category and bind a new content model, and then migrate the existing content to the new category.

Can you create fields associated with other content models in a custom content model? For example, associate lecturer information from the 'Lecturer Model' with the 'Event Model'?The document of AnQiCMS does not directly mention the function of complex associations between content models through fields (such as one-to-many or many-to-many relationships).Currently, custom fields mainly support input of basic data types.archiveDetailorarchiveListLabel, call and display associated content by combining the ID parameter, and realize logical association.