Content Fragments

Content fragments in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as a Cloud Service are created and managed as page-independent assets.

They allow you to create channel-neutral content, together with (possibly channel-specific) variations. You can then use these fragments, and their variations, when authoring your content pages.

Together with the updated JSON exporter, structured content fragments can also be used to deliver AEM content via Content Services to channels other than AEM pages.

NOTE

Content Fragments and Experience Fragments are different features within AEM:

  • Content Fragments are editorial content, with definition and structure, but without additional visual design and/or layout. They can be used to access structured data, including texts, numbers, and dates, amongst others.
  • Experience Fragments are fully laid out content; a fragment of a web page.

Experience Fragments can contain content in the form of Content Fragments, but not the other way around.

For further information see also Understanding Content Fragments and Experience Fragments in AEM.

CAUTION

This page must be read in conjunction with Working with Content Fragments (and related pages) as it introduces basic terminology and concepts, together with creating and managing fragments.

The content fragments enable:

  • Marketing and Campaign Strategy
    • Review content via centrally managed content fragments.
  • Creative Pro
    • Tracking of creative assets via collections associated with content fragments.
  • Copy Writers
    • Write in the AEM content fragment editor.
    • Can create content variations.
    • Can associate relevant content with the content fragment.
    • Can use versioning/workflow.
    • Can share content fragment.
    • Can manage translations centrally.
  • Producers and Journey Managers
    • Select from predefined fragments and variations with authoring in AEM.
    • Can rely on fragment and associated content always being up-to-date as copy writers and creatives make their updates in centrally managed fragments and assets.
    • Can rely on associated media content being curated for relevancy.
    • Can create ad-hoc content variations on the fly while still ensuring those variations remain centrally managed in the fragment.

Adding a Content Fragment to Your Page

  1. Open your page for editing.

  2. Add the Content Fragment component; from either the Components browser or Insert New Component.

  3. You can either:

    • Open the Assets browser and filter for Content Fragments (the default is Images). Then drag the required fragment onto the component instance.
    • Select the content fragment component, then Configure from the toolbar. In the dialog you can open the selection dialog to browse and select the required Content Fragment.
    NOTE

    An alternative method is to drag a specific content fragment directly onto the page. This will automatically create the associated component (Content Fragment).

  4. Initially the content from the Main Element and Master (variation) will be shown. You can select other elements and/or variations as required.

    Content Fragments in the Assets Browser

    NOTE

    For more information about further editing functionality see also:

Selecting the Element or Variation

Open the fragment’s Configuration dialog to configure the fragment for use on the current page. The dialog can depend on the component used.

NOTE

In the appropriate configuration dialog you can select the available parameters, including:

  • Content Fragment

    • Specify the fragment to be used.

  • Display Mode:

    • Single Text Element
    • Multiple Elements

  • Element

    • A selection will be available dependent on the model used.
    NOTE

    The elements available depend on the model used.

  • Variation

    • The default Master will always be available.
    • A selection will be available if variations were created for the fragment.

  • ID

    • HTML ID attribute to apply to the component.

Quick Connection to Fragment Editor

You can open the fragment source for editing (the asset) using the Edit icon on the component toolbar. This will allow you to edit and manage the content fragment.

CAUTION

As always, editing the fragment source will impact all pages that reference that content fragment.

Adding In-Between Content

When a specific content fragment is added to the page, there is a Drag components here placeholder between each HTML paragraph (and at the top/bottom) of the fragment.

This allows you to add extra content in-between (i.e. in-between content) the fragment content (at any of the available points), without having to change the root fragment.

For in-between content you can:

CAUTION

The in-between content is page content. It is not stored in the content fragment.

Insert component

NOTE

You can also insert visual assets (images) to the fragment itself.

Visual assets inserted into the fragment itself are attached to the preceding paragraph in the fragment. This means that you cannot position in-between content between a visual asset and the preceding paragraph. If you need this level of connection you can add the image to the fragment (as a mixed-media fragment).

CAUTION

After you have added in-between content to a content fragment on your page, then changing the structure of the underlying content fragment (i.e. in the content fragment editor) could lead to erroneous/unexpected results.

When this occurs the in-between content is kept as is:

  • In-between components have an absolute position within the sequence of components in the fragment flow. This position does not change, even when the content of paragraphs in the fragment changes.

    This can make it appear as if the relative positioning has changed, as in-between paragraphs have no contextual relationship to the (fragment) paragraphs they are positioned next to.

  • Unless the two paragraph structures conflict; in such a case, the in-between content is not displayed (although it is still present internally).

Using Associated Content

If you have associated content with the content fragment these assets will be available from the side panel (after you place your fragment on the content page). Associated content is effectively a special source of content for in-between content.

NOTE

There are various methods of adding visual assets (for example, images) to the fragment and/or page.

NOTE

If you have multiple content fragments on the one page, the Associated Content tab will show assets appropriate to all fragments.

Once you have added a fragment with associated content to your page a new tab (Associated Content) is opened in the side panel.

From here you can drag the assets to the required location (either to an existing component or to the required position where the appropriate component will be created):

Inserting an image

Assets Inserted into the Fragment

If assets (for example, images) have been inserted into the fragment itself (as mixed-media fragments), then the options for editing these assets in the page editor is limited.

For example, for an image you can

  • Crop, rotate or flip the image.
  • Add a title or alternative text.
  • Specify a size.
  • You can also configure the layout.

Other changes, such as move, copy, delete must be made in the fragment editor.

Publishing

Fragments need to be published so they can used used on your published web pages:

Exporting Content Fragments

For export to Adobe Target, JSON can be used to deliver the fragment. See:

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