Custom Content Fields: add custom settings in the Content Field settings page

[MarGraz]

Hi everyone,

I'm doing some tests on custom content fields, and I have created a module (feature) for my content fields, that contains a MyText field. I have also implemented a MyTextFieldDisplayDriver class that is a ContentFieldDisplayDriver<MyTextField>.

I noticed that when I add my custom content field to a Content Type, I can click on the edit button, as shown in this screenshot:

And a settings page is displayed (URL path: https://localhost:7825/Admin/ContentParts/Index/Fields/MyText/Edit?returnUrl=%2FAdmin%2FContentTypes%2FEdit%2FIndex):

But, when adding breakpoints in my MyTextFieldDisplayDriver class, none of the methods (Display, Edit, and UpdateAsync) are triggered.
The main question is: how can I add custom settings to my custom content field?

What I'm attempting to do is add a string property to my custom field, this string property will contains a regex. This will serve as a validation method when the Admin user fills out the field and submits it to the UpdateAsync method in my MyTextFieldDisplayDriver.

Of course, I know that I can also add a regex validation using a custom editor (we already discussed this topic here), but my goal is to explore whether I can achieve the same outcome with a custom validation attribute. I'm treating this as an experiment.

Thank you for your help 😊

[MarGraz]

I checked the source code and found the "Edit page" in the backoffice, specifically the EditPage.cshtml and EditFieldViewModel. It seems that is not possible to customize this page. Is that correct?

[MarGraz]

@hishamco apologies for the direct mention. I noticed that you contributed to the Content Types documentation page, and I thought you might have a suggestion regarding the question I asked above. Do you have any insights? 🙂

Thank you

[hishamco]

No problem feel free to mention me when you need :)

Please share you minimal repo, so I can have a look

[douwinga]

You would need a settings driver for that. Which is different from the Field display driver. You will have a class that inherits from ContentPartFieldDefinitionDisplayDriver. Something like public class MyTextFieldSettingsDriver : ContentPartFieldDefinitionDisplayDriver<MyTextField> which is then added to your Startup.cs with something like services.AddScoped<IContentPartFieldDefinitionDisplayDriver, MyTextFieldSettingsDriver>();. You will have to add your view and such too, but this should get you in the right direction and give you something to search for.

The ContentFieldDisplayDriver is for handling the displaying on the front end and editing of the content item itself, not the editing of the settings.

[MarGraz]

Thank you for your reply.

Do you know if it’s possible to create a SettingsDriver class for the Text field class that is already defined in Orchard Core?

Thank you

[douwinga]

Yes you can. We do it. It is the same as with a custom field as described above, but replace <MyTextField> with <TextField>