Templates and View Data

Every theme template receives a rich, pre-assembled set of variables — the content, site settings, navigation, media and SEO data. This article is the reference for that data and for the rendering rules templates should follow.

How a template is chosen#

For content of type page on a site with theme mytheme, Laravix renders themes.mytheme::page.show.

That namespace resolves against your theme first and the default theme second, so the view "exists" as long as either theme provides it. Only when neither does — an unknown content type, say — does Laravix fall back to themes.mytheme::default, which resolves the same way. The same convention applies to every content type, including plugin types.

In practice: to change how posts look, add post/show.blade.php to your theme. To leave them alone, add nothing. See Theme Structure.

Available variables#

Assembled by Laravix\Cms\Services\PageDataBuilder and the CMS controller:

Working with media#

Media models expose $media->url (the original) and $media->variantUrl(ImageVariant::LARGE) for resized variants (THUMBNAIL, MEDIUM, LARGE, OG, FAVICON, FULL — see Laravix\Cms\Enums\ImageVariant). Always render the smallest variant that fits the slot.

Working with fields#

@php $fields = $content->fields->pluck('value', 'key'); @endphp
{{ $fields->get('excerpt') }}

Theme assets#

Two helpers turn a file into a URL, both on Laravix\Cms\Laravix:

{{-- The stylesheet bundled with the core, from public/vendor/laravix/ --}}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ \Laravix\Cms\Laravix::asset('app.css') }}">

{{-- A file your theme built into themes/{theme}/dist/ --}}
@if ($themeStylesheet = \Laravix\Cms\Laravix::themeAsset('app.css', $site->theme))
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ $themeStylesheet }}">
@endif

themeAsset() takes the file name and the theme key, and returns null when the file isn't in that theme's dist/ — so always guard it as above rather than printing it straight into an attribute. The URL it returns ends with a ?v= stamp derived from the file's modification time, which busts the browser cache whenever you rebuild.

Both resolve to real files under public/, which for themes means the public/themes/{theme} symlink created by php artisan laravix:theme:link. If a theme stylesheet silently doesn't load, that link is the first thing to check.

Rendering builder content#

Content designed in the visual builder arrives as $grapesjsHtml. Content built from classic blocks arrives as the $content->blocks array. The core ships a partial that handles both, including the JavaScript that sliders, tabs, countdowns and custom code blocks need:

@include('laravix::cms.builder-content')

The default theme's page/show.blade.php does exactly this when builder content exists, and falls back to a plain title-and-fields layout otherwise. If you render blocks yourself instead, each entry of $content->blocks is ['type' => ..., 'data' => [...]] and maps to your theme view blocks/{type}.blade.php, which receives the block's data plus $mediaMap.

URLs and languages#

Build links to other content with $content->path($defaultLocale) — it handles the homepage, route prefixes and locale prefixes. In layouts, emit alternates:

@foreach ($alternates as $altLocale => $altUrl)
    <link rel="alternate" hreflang="{{ $altLocale }}" href="{{ $altUrl }}">
@endforeach

SEO contract#

Layouts should honor the $seo array: put $seo['title'] in <title>, output the description and canonical link, emit noindex,nofollow robots meta when $seo['noindex'] is true, and use $seo['og_image_url'] for Open Graph. The default theme's layouts/app.blade.php is a complete reference implementation, including Open Graph, Twitter cards and JSON-LD.

Related articles#

• Theme Structure
• CLI Commands — laravix:theme:link
• Custom Blocks
• Content Model