#Automate Static Block Creation
When building out a Magento site a frequent client question will be "How do I edit that bit of text?". The common solution to this in Magento is to use a static block. At this point, you have to two options:
- reference a static block in the layout file, and manually create it on dev, staging, prod, etc.
- add an installation script to create the block.
If you're doing it right™ then you'll be using the latter, and writing a setup script to automatically create the block for you on deployment. Writing setup scripts is a pain in the ass, especially if you have multiple developers working on the same project, commiting changes, and bumping the resource versions. This can lead to problematic merge conflicts and inconsistent working copies amongst developers.
This extension allows you to create static blocks on the fly from within your layout file, prepopulating it with content (if you so wish) or adding a basic "I am this block" message.
##Installation
modman clone git@github.com:meanbee/magento-admin-editable.git
modman deploy magento-admin-editable
##Usage
The following examples will create blocks only if they do not already exist. If they already exist then no creation logic will be run, and the block will be output -- just like if you'd made a cms/block block instead.
This will populate a block called failover_outro with either the contents of the file static_blocks/failover_outro.phtml in your theme, or it will output the message This content is retrieved from the failover_outro static block in the administration area.
<block type="meanbee_admineditable/content" name="content.failover_outro">
<action method="setStaticBlockId"><identifier>failover_outro</identifier></action>
<action method="setStaticBlockTitle"><title>Failover Outro Text</title></action>
</block>
This will create the block called failover_title with the content <h1>Failover License</h1>.
<block type="meanbee_admineditable/content" name="content.failover_title">
<action method="setStaticBlockId"><identifier>failover_title</identifier></action>
<action method="setStaticBlockTitle"><title>Failover Title Text</title></action>
<action method="setStaticBlockDefaultContent"><content><![CDATA[<h1>Failover License</h1>]]></content></action>
</block>
This will create the block called failover_foo with the content of the file sales/over/view/failover/foo.phtml.
<block type="meanbee_admineditable/content" name="failover_foo">
<action method="setStaticBlockId"><identifier>failover_foo</identifier></action>
<action method="setStaticBlockTitle"><title>Failover Foo Text</title></action>
<action method="setStaticBlockDefaultTemplate"><template>sales/over/view/failover/foo.phtml</template></action>
</block>