Customize AEM CIF Core Components customize-cif-components

The CIF Venia Project is a reference code base for using CIF Core Components. In this tutorial, you further extend the Product Teaser component to display a custom attribute from Adobe Commerce. You also learn more about the GraphQL integration between AEM and Adobe Commerce and the extension hooks provided by the CIF Core Components.

TIP
Use the AEM Project archetype when starting your own commerce implementation.

What You Will Build

The Venia brand recently started manufacturing some products using sustainable materials and the business would like to display an Eco Friendly badge as part of the Product Teaser. A new custom attribute is created in Adobe Commerce to indicate if a product uses the Eco friendly material. This custom attribute is added as part of the GraphQL query and displayed on the Product Teaser for specified products.

Eco Friendly Badge Final Implementation

Prerequisites prerequisites

A local development environment is required to complete this tutorial. This environment includes a running instance of AEM that is configured and connected to an Adobe Commerce instance. Review the requirements and steps for setting up a local development with AEM as a Cloud Service SDK. To follow the tutorial completely, you need permission to add Attributes to a Product in Adobe Commerce.

You also need GraphQL IDE such as GraphiQL or a browser extension to run the code samples and tutorials. If you install a browser extension, make sure it can set request headers. On Google Chrome, Altair GraphQL Client is one extension that can do the job.

Clone the Venia Project clone-venia-project

Clone the Venia Project, and then override the default styles.

NOTE
Feel free to use an existing project (based on the AEM Project Archetype with CIF included) and skip this section.
  1. Run the following git command so you can clone the project:

    code language-shell
    $ git clone git@github.com:adobe/aem-cif-guides-venia.git
    
  2. Build and deploy the project to a local instance of AEM:

    code language-shell
    $ cd aem-cif-guides-venia/
    $ mvn clean install -PautoInstallSinglePackage,cloud
    
  3. Add the necessary OSGi configurations so you connect your AEM instance to an Adobe Commerce instance, or add the configurations to the created project.

  4. At this point, you should have a working version of a storefront that is connected to an Adobe Commerce instance. Navigate to the US > Home page at: http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html.

    You should see that the storefront currently is using the Venia theme. Expanding the Main Menu of the storefront, you should see various categories, indicating that the connection to Adobe Commerce is working.

    Storefront Configured with Venia Theme

Author the Product Teaser author-product-teaser

The Product Teaser Component is extended throughout this tutorial. As a first step, add an instance of the Product Teaser to the Home page to understand the baseline functionality.

  1. Navigate to the Home Page of the site: http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/acme/us/en.html

  2. Insert a new Product Teaser Component into the main layout container on the page.

    Insert Product Teaser

  3. Expand the Side Panel (if not already toggled) and switch the asset finder drop-down list to Products. This list should display a list of available products from a connected Adobe Commerce instance. Select a product and drag+drop it onto the Product Teaser component on the page.

    Drag + Drop Product Teaser

    note note
    NOTE
    Note, you can also configure the displayed product by configuring the component using the dialog (clicking the wrench icon).
  4. You should now see a Product being displayed by the Product Teaser. The Name of the product and the Price of the product are default attributes that are displayed.

    Product Teaser - default style

Add a Custom Attribute in Adobe Commerce add-custom-attribute

The products and product data displayed in AEM are stored in Adobe Commerce. Next add an attribute for Eco Friendly as part of the product attribute set by using the Adobe Commerce UI.

TIP
Already have a custom Yes/No attribute as part of your product attribute set? Feel free to use it and skip this section.
  1. Log on to your Adobe Commerce instance.

  2. Navigate to Catalog > Products.

  3. Update the search filter so you can find the Configurable Product used when added to the Teaser component in the previous exercise. Open the product in edit mode.

    Search for Valeria Product

  4. From the product view, click Add Attribute > Create New Attribute.

  5. Fill out the New Attribute form with the following values (leave default settings for other values)

    table 0-row-3 1-row-3 2-row-3 3-row-3
    Field Set Field Label Value
    Attribute Properties Attribute Label Eco Friendly
    Attribute Properties Catalog Input Type Yes/No
    Advanced Attribute Properties Attribute Code eco_friendly

    New Attribute form

    Click Save Attribute when finished.

  6. Scroll to the bottom of the product and expand the Attributes heading. You should see the new Eco Friendly field. Switch the toggle to Yes.

    Switch toggle to yes

    Save the changes to the product.

    note tip
    TIP
    More details about managing Product Attributes can be found in the Adobe Commerce user guide.
  7. Navigate to System > Tools > Cache Management. Because an update was made to the data schema, you must invalidate some of the Cache Types in Adobe Commerce.

  8. Check the box next to Configuration and submit the cache type for Refresh

    Refresh Configuration Cache Type

    note tip
    TIP
    More details about Cache Management can be found in the Adobe Commerce user guide.

Use a GraphQL IDE to Verify Attribute use-graphql-ide

Before jumping into AEM code, it is useful to explore the GraphQL Overview using a GraphQL IDE. The Adobe Commerce integration with AEM is primarily done via a series of GraphQL queries. Understanding and modifying the GraphQL queries is one of the key ways in which the CIF Core Components can be extended.

Next, use a GraphQL IDE to verify that the eco_friendly attribute has been added to the product attribute set. Screenshots in this tutorial are using the Altair GraphQL Client Google Chrome extension.

  1. Open the GraphQL IDE and enter the URL http://<commerce-server>/graphql in the URL bar of your IDE or extension.

  2. Add the following products query where YOUR_SKU is the SKU of the product used in the previous exercise:

    code language-json
      {
        products(
        filter: { sku: { eq: "YOUR_SKU" } }
        ) {
            items {
            name
            sku
            eco_friendly
            }
        }
    }
    
  3. Execute the query and you should get a response like the following:

    code language-json
    {
      "data": {
        "products": {
          "items": [
            {
              "name": "Valeria Two-Layer Tank",
              "sku": "VT11",
              "eco_friendly": 1
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
    

    Sample GraphQL response

    The value of Yes is an integer of 1. This value is useful when you write the GraphQL query in Java™.

    note tip
    TIP
    Read more detailed documentation about Adobe Commerce GraphQL here.

Update the Sling Model for the Product Teaser updating-sling-model-product-teaser

Next, you extend the business logic of the Product Teaser by implementing a Sling Model. Sling Models are annotation driven “POJOs” (Plain Old Java™ Objects) that implement business logic that is needed by the component. Sling Models are used with the HTL scripts as part of the component. Follow the delegation pattern for Sling Models so you can extend parts of the existing Product Teaser model.

Sling Models are implemented as Java™ and can be found in the core module of the generated project.

Use the IDE of your choice to import the Venia project. Screenshots used are from the Visual Studio Code IDE.

  1. In your IDE, navigate under the core module to: core/src/main/java/com/venia/core/models/commerce/MyProductTeaser.java.

    Core location IDE

    MyProductTeaser.java is a Java™ Interface that that extends the CIF ProductTeaser interface.

    Already a new method has been added named isShowBadge() to display a badge if the product is considered “New”.

  2. Add isEcoFriendly() to the interface:

    code language-java
    @ProviderType
    public interface MyProductTeaser extends ProductTeaser {
        // Extend the existing interface with the additional properties which you
        // want to expose to the HTL template.
        public Boolean isShowBadge();
    
        public Boolean isEcoFriendly();
    }
    

    This new method is introduced to encapsulate the logic to indicate if the product has the eco_friendly attribute set to Yes or No.

  3. Next, inspect the MyProductTeaserImpl.java at core/src/main/java/com/venia/core/models/commerce/MyProductTeaserImpl.java.

    The delegation pattern for Sling Models allows MyProductTeaserImpl to reference ProductTeaser model via the sling:resourceSuperType property:

    code language-java
    @Self
    @Via(type = ResourceSuperType.class)
    private ProductTeaser productTeaser;
    

    For the methods that you do not want to override or change, you can return the value that the ProductTeaser returns. For example:

    code language-java
    @Override
    public String getImage() {
        return productTeaser.getImage();
    }
    

    This method minimizes the amount of Java™ code that an implementation must write.

  4. One of the extra extension points provided by AEM CIF Core Components is the AbstractProductRetriever which provides access to specific product attributes. Inspect the initModel() method:

    code language-java
    import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;
    ...
    @Model(adaptables = SlingHttpServletRequest.class, adapters = MyProductTeaser.class, resourceType = MyProductTeaserImpl.RESOURCE_TYPE)
    public class MyProductTeaserImpl implements MyProductTeaser {
        ...
        private AbstractProductRetriever productRetriever;
    
        /* add this method to initialize the productRetriever */
        @PostConstruct
        public void initModel() {
            productRetriever = productTeaser.getProductRetriever();
    
            if (productRetriever != null) {
                productRetriever.extendProductQueryWith(p -> p.createdAt());
            }
    
        }
    ...
    

    The @PostConstruct annotation ensures that this method is called when the Sling Model is initialized.

    Notice that the product GraphQL query has already been extended using the extendProductQueryWith method to retrieve the additional created_at attribute. This attribute is later used as part of the isShowBadge() method.

  5. Update the GraphQL query to include the eco_friendly attribute in the partial query:

    code language-java
    //MyProductTeaserImpl.java
    
    private static final String ECO_FRIENDLY_ATTRIBUTE = "eco_friendly";
    
    @PostConstruct
    public void initModel() {
        productRetriever = productTeaser.getProductRetriever();
    
        if (productRetriever != null) {
            productRetriever.extendProductQueryWith(p -> p
                .createdAt()
                .addCustomSimpleField(ECO_FRIENDLY_ATTRIBUTE)
            );
        }
    }
    

    Adding to the extendProductQueryWith method is a powerful way to ensure that additional product attributes are available to the rest of the model. It also minimizes the number of queries executed.

    In the above code, theaddCustomSimpleField is used to retrieve the eco_friendly attribute. This attribute illustrates how you can query for any custom attributes that are part of the Adobe Commerce schema.

    note note
    NOTE
    The createdAt() method has been implemented as part of the Product Interface. Most of the commonly found schema attributes have been implemented, so only use the addCustomSimpleField for truly custom attributes.
  6. Add a logger so you can debug the Java™ code:

    code language-java
    import org.slf4j.Logger;
    import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
    ...
    @Model(adaptables = SlingHttpServletRequest.class, adapters = MyProductTeaser.class, resourceType = MyProductTeaserImpl.RESOURCE_TYPE)
    public class MyProductTeaserImpl implements MyProductTeaser {
    
    private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(MyProductTeaserImpl.class);
    
  7. Next, implement the isEcoFriendly() method:

    code language-java
    @Override
    public Boolean isEcoFriendly() {
    
        Integer ecoFriendlyValue;
        try {
            ecoFriendlyValue = productRetriever.fetchProduct().getAsInteger(ECO_FRIENDLY_ATTRIBUTE);
            if(ecoFriendlyValue != null && ecoFriendlyValue.equals(Integer.valueOf(1))) {
                LOGGER.info("*** Product is Eco Friendly**");
                return true;
            }
        } catch (SchemaViolationError e) {
            LOGGER.error("Error retrieving eco friendly attribute");
        }
        LOGGER.info("*** Product is not Eco Friendly**");
        return false;
    }
    

    In the above method, the productRetriever is used to fetch the product and the getAsInteger() method is used to get the value of the eco_friendly attribute. Based on the GraphQL queries you ran earlier, you know that the expected value when the eco_friendly attribute is set to “Yes” is actually an integer of 1.

    Now that the Sling Model has been updated, the Component markup must be updated to actually display an indicator of Eco Friendly based on the Sling Model.

Customizing the Markup of the Product Teaser customize-markup-product-teaser

A common extension of AEM components is to modify the markup generated by the component. This editing is done by overriding the HTL script that the component uses to render its markup. HTML Template Language (HTL), is a lightweight templating language that AEM components use to dynamically render markup based on authored content, allowing the components to be reused. The Product Teaser, for example, can be reused over and over again to display different products.

In this case, you want to render a banner on top of the teaser to indicate that the product is “Eco Friendly” based on a custom attribute. The design pattern for customizing the markup of a component is standard for all AEM Components, not just for the AEM CIF Core Components.

NOTE
If you customize a component using the CIF product and category pickers, like this Product Teaser or the CIF page component, make sure you include the required cif.shell.picker clientlib for the component dialogs. See Usage of CIF product & category picker for details.
  1. In the IDE, navigate and expand the ui.apps module and expand the folder hierarchy to: ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/venia/components/commerce/productteaser and inspect the .content.xml file.

    Product Teaser ui.apps

    code language-xml
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <jcr:root xmlns:sling="http://sling.apache.org/jcr/sling/1.0" xmlns:cq="http://www.day.com/jcr/cq/1.0" xmlns:jcr="http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0"
        jcr:description="Product Teaser Component"
        jcr:primaryType="cq:Component"
        jcr:title="Product Teaser"
        sling:resourceSuperType="core/cif/components/commerce/productteaser/v1/productteaser"
        componentGroup="Venia - Commerce"/>
    

    The Component definition above is for the Product Teaser Component in your project. Notice the property sling:resourceSuperType="core/cif/components/commerce/productteaser/v1/productteaser". This property is an example of creating a Proxy component. Instead of copying and pasting the Product Teaser HTL scripts from the AEM CIF Core Components, you can use the sling:resourceSuperType to inherit all the functionality.

  2. Open the file productteaser.html. This file is a copy of the productteaser.html file from the CIF Product Teaser.

    code language-html
    <!--/* productteaser.html */-->
    <sly
      data-sly-use.product="com.venia.core.models.commerce.MyProductTeaser"
      data-sly-use.templates="core/wcm/components/commons/v1/templates.html"
      data-sly-use.actionsTpl="actions.html"
      data-sly-test.isConfigured="${properties.selection}"
      data-sly-test.hasProduct="${product.url}"
    ></sly>
    

    Notice that the Sling Model for MyProductTeaser is used and assigned to the product variable.

  3. Modify productteaser.html so you can call the isEcoFriendly method implemented in the previous exercise:

    code language-html
    ...
    <div
      data-sly-test="${isConfigured && hasProduct}"
      class="item__root"
      data-cmp-is="productteaser"
      data-virtual="${product.virtualProduct}"
    >
      <div data-sly-test="${product.showBadge}" class="item__badge">
        <span>${properties.text || 'New'}</span>
      </div>
      <!--/* Insert call to Eco Friendly here */-->
      <div data-sly-test="${product.ecoFriendly}" class="item__eco">
        <span>Eco Friendly</span>
      </div>
      ...
    </div>
    

    When calling a Sling Model method in HTL the get and is portion of the method is dropped and the first letter is lowercased. So isShowBadge() becomes .showBadge and isEcoFriendly becomes .ecoFriendly. Based on the boolean value returned from .isEcoFriendly() determines if the <span>Eco Friendly</span> is displayed.

    More information about data-sly-test and other HTL block statements can be found here.

  4. Save the changes and deploy the updates to AEM using your Maven skills, from a command-line terminal:

    code language-shell
    $ cd aem-cif-guides-venia/
    $ mvn clean install -PautoInstallSinglePackage,cloud
    
  5. Open a new browser window and navigate to AEM and the OSGi console > Status > Sling Models: http://localhost:4502/system/console/status-slingmodels

  6. Search for MyProductTeaserImpl and you should see a line like the following:

    code language-plain
    com.venia.core.models.commerce.MyProductTeaserImpl - venia/components/commerce/productteaser
    

    This line indicates that the Sling Model is properly deployed and mapped to the correct component.

  7. Refresh to the Venia Home Page at http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html where the Product Teaser has been added.

    Eco Friendly message displayed

    If the product has the eco_friendly attribute set to Yes, you should see the text “Eco Friendly” on the page. Try switching to different products to see the behavior change.

  8. Next open up the AEM error.log to see the added log statements. The error.log is at <AEM SDK Install Location>/crx-quickstart/logs/error.log.

    Search the AEM logs to see the added log statements in the Sling Model:

    code language-plain
    2020-08-28 12:57:03.114 INFO [com.venia.core.models.commerce.MyProductTeaserImpl] *** Product is Eco Friendly**
    ...
    2020-08-28 13:01:00.271 INFO [com.venia.core.models.commerce.MyProductTeaserImpl] *** Product is not Eco Friendly**
    ...
    
    note caution
    CAUTION
    You may also see some stack traces if the product used in the teaser does not have the eco_friendly attribute as part of its attribute set.

Add Styles for the Eco Friendly Badge add-styles

At this point the logic for when to display the Eco Friendly badge is working, however the plain text could use some styles. Next add an icon and styles to the ui.frontend module to complete the implementation.

  1. Download the eco_friendly.svg file. This file is used as the Eco Friendly badge.

  2. Return to the IDE and navigate to the ui.frontend folder.

  3. Add the eco_friendly.svg file to the ui.frontend/src/main/resources/images folder:

    Eco Friendly SVG added

  4. Open the file productteaser.scss at ui.frontend/src/main/styles/commerce/_productteaser.scss.

  5. Add the following Sass rules inside the .productteaser class:

    code language-scss
    .productteaser {
        ...
        .item__eco {
            width: 60px;
            height: 60px;
            left: 0px;
            overflow: hidden;
            position: absolute;
            padding: 5px;
    
        span {
            display: block;
            position: absolute;
            width: 45px;
            height: 45px;
            text-indent: -9999px;
            background: no-repeat center center url('../resources/images/eco_friendly.svg');
            }
        }
    ...
    }
    
    note note
    NOTE
    Check out Styling CIF Core Components for more details around front-end workflows.
  6. Save the changes and deploy the updates to AEM using your Maven skills, from a command-line terminal:

    code language-shell
    $ cd aem-cif-guides-venia/
    $ mvn clean install -PautoInstallSinglePackage,cloud
    
  7. Refresh to the Venia Home Page at http://localhost:4502/editor.html/content/venia/us/en.html where the Product Teaser has been added.

    Eco Friendly Badge Final Implementation

Congratulations congratulations

You customized your first AEM CIF component! Download the finished solution files here.

Bonus Challenge bonus-challenge

Review the functionality of the New badge that has already been implemented in the Product Teaser. Try to add an extra checkbox for authors to control when the Eco Friendly badge should be displayed. Update the component dialog box at ui.apps/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/venia/components/commerce/productteaser/_cq_dialog/.content.xml.

New Badge Implementation challenge

Additional Resources additional-resources

recommendation-more-help
fbcff2a9-b6fe-4574-b04a-21e75df764ab