Documentation AEM as a Cloud Service User Guide

Customizing Page Authoring

Last update: February 5, 2025

Topics:
Developing

CREATED FOR:

Admin
Developer

Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service provides mechanisms to let you customize the page authoring functionality (and the consoles) of your authoring instance.

Clientlibs

Clientlibs let you extend the default implementation to enable new functionality, while reusing the standard functions, objects, and methods.

When customizing, you can create your own clientlib under /apps. The new clientlib must:

Depend on the authoring clientlib cq.authoring.editor.sites.page.
Be part of the appropriate cq.authoring.editor.sites.page.hook category.

See Using Client-Side Libraries on AEM as a Cloud Service.

Overlays

Overlays are based on node definitions and allow you to overlay the standard functionality in /libs with your own customized functionality in /apps.

When creating an overlay, a 1:1 copy of the original is not required, as the sling resource merger allows for inheritance.

For more information, see the JS documentation set.

For more information on overlays, see Overlays for Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service.

Add New Layer (Mode)

When you are editing a page, there are various modes available. These modes are implemented using layers. These allow access to differing types of functionality for the same page content. Standard AEM modes include Edit, Layout, Developer, Timewarp, Live Copy Status, and Targeting.

Layer Example: Live Copy Status

A standard AEM instance provides the MSM layer. This accesses data related to multisite management and highlights it in the layer.

To see it in action, you may edit any language copy in the WKND sample content and select the Live Copy Status mode.

You can find the MSM layer definition (for reference) in:

/libs/wcm/msm/content/touch-ui/authoring/editor/js/msm.Layer.js

Code Sample

This is a sample package showing how to create a layer (mode) for MSM view.

You can find the code of this page on GitHub.

Add New Selection Category to Asset Browser

The asset browser shows assets of various types/categories (for example, images and documents). The assets can also be filtered by these asset categories.

Code Sample

aem-authoring-extension-assetfinder-flickr is a sample package showing how to add a group to the asset finder. This example connects to Flickr’s public stream and shows them in the side panel.

You can find the code of this page on GitHub.

Filtering Resources

When authoring pages, the user must often select from resources in a list.

To keep the list to a reasonable size and also relevant to the use case, a filter can be implemented in the form of a custom predicate. For example, if the pathbrowser Granite component is used to allow the user to select the path to a particular resource, the paths presented can be filtered in the following way:

Implement the custom predicate by implementing com.day.cq.commons.predicate.AbstractNodePredicate interface.
Specify a name for the predicate, and refer that name when using the pathbrowser.

For further detail on creating a custom predicate, see this article.

Each component usually has a toolbar that provides access to a range of actions that can be taken on that component.

Code Sample

aem-authoring-extension-toolbar-screenshot is a sample package showing how to create a custom toolbar action to render components.

You can find the code of this page on GitHub.

Add New In-Place Editor

Standard In-Place Editor

In a standard AEM installation:

/libs/cq/gui/components/authoring/editors/clientlibs/core/js/editors/editorExample.js holds definitions of the various editors available.
There is a connection between the editor and each resource type (as in component) that can use it:
- cq:inplaceEditing
  
  for example:
  - /libs/foundation/components/text/cq:editConfig
  - /libs/foundation/components/image/cq:editConfig
    - property: editorType
      
      Defines the type of inline editor that is used when the in-place editing is triggered for that component; for example, text, textimage, image, title.
Additional configuration details of the editor can be configured using a config node containing configurations and a plugin node to contain necessary plugin configuration details.

The following is an example of defining aspect ratios for the image cropping plugin of the image component.

   <cq:inplaceEditing
           jcr:primaryType="cq:InplaceEditingConfig"
           active="{Boolean}true"
           editorType="image">
           <config jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured">
               <plugins jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured">
                   <crop jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured">
                       <aspectRatios jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured">
                           <_x0031_6-10
                               jcr:primaryType="nt:unstructured"
                               name="16 : 10"
                               ratio="0.625"/>
                       </aspectRatios>
                   </crop>
               </plugins>
           </config>
   </cq:inplaceEditing>

NOTE

AEM crop ratios, as set by the ratio property, are defined as height/width. This differs from the conventional definition of width/height and is done for legacy compatibility reasons. The authoring users will not be aware of any difference provided you define the name property clearly since this is what is displayed in the UI.

Creating a New In-Place Editor

To implement a new in-place editor (within your clientlib):

Implement:
- setUp
- tearDown
Register the editor (includes the constructor):
- editor.register
Provide the connection between the editor and every resource type (as in component) that can use it.

Code Sample for Creating a New In-Place Editor

aem-authoring-extension-inplace-editor is a sample package showing how to create an in-place editor in AEM.

You can find the code of this page on GitHub.

Add a New Page Action

To add a new page action to the page toolbar, for example, a Back to Sites (console) action.

Code Sample

aem-authoring-extension-header-backtosites is a sample package showing how to create a custom header bar action to jump back to the Sites console.

You can find the code of this page on GitHub.

Customizing the Request for Activation Workflow

The out-of-the-box workflow, Request for Activation:

Will automatically appear on the appropriate menu when a content author does not have the appropriate replication rights, but does have membership of DAM-Users and Authors.
Otherwise, nothing is displayed, as replication rights have been removed.

To have customized behavior on such activation, you can overlay the Request for Activation workflow:

In /apps overlay the Sites wizard /libs/wcm/core/content/common/managepublicationwizard
- This itself, overrides the common instance of /libs/cq/gui/content/common/managepublicationwizard.
Update the workflow model and related configurations/scripts as required.
Remove the right to the replicate action from all appropriate users for all relevant pages. To have this workflow triggered as a default action when any of the users, try to publish (or replicate) a page.

recommendation-more-help

Customizing Page Authoring

Clientlibs

Overlays

Add New Layer (Mode)

Layer Example: Live Copy Status

Code Sample

Add New Selection Category to Asset Browser

Code Sample

Filtering Resources

Add New Action to a Component Toolbar

Code Sample

Add New In-Place Editor

Standard In-Place Editor

Creating a New In-Place Editor

Code Sample for Creating a New In-Place Editor

Add a New Page Action

Code Sample

Customizing the Request for Activation Workflow