Jahia Starter Template limitations

November 14, 2023
Warning: This module is in Alpha version, meaning that no support will be provided until it is officially released. The intent is to let you explore a new way of integrating simple sites with Jahia. Please use the form at the bottom of the page to share your feedback about the feature itself, what you would need to use it in production, or if the documentation is lacking information.

Limitations

The Jahia Starter Template module has the following limitations:

  • The Jahia Starter Template does not support HTML comments (the provided HTML does not include comments).
  • Sliders, tabs, etc. are very difficult to edit or create in Page Composer.
    • CSS Page Composer overrides can help to have something more useable in these cases
  • Styling applies to the + Any content buttons in Page Composer, and to the work in progress and deleted overlays..
  • The assets files need to be in the corresponding folders, you can’t have subfolders.
    • Global Assets are ordered alphabetically. You need to rename them to define the priority.
    • Page specific assets are added in the order they appear in Content Editor. They are not easy to reorder, for example if you need to add a new file.
    • CSS files that point to fonts files usually use something like:
      @font-face {
      font-family: 'FontAwesome';
      src: url('../fonts/fontawesome-webfont.eot?v=4.7.0');

      But Jahia returns a 404 on the GET call for: /fonts/fontawesome-webfont.eot?v=4.7.0
      Removing the ?v=4.7.0 in the CSS file resolves the issue, but implies modifying the vendor source file
  • Fixed heights in the CSS can be tricky, as they can interfere with the rendering in Page Composer. Page Composer adds elements, like “new content” buttons. Therefore, when using a fixed “height” value, some of these elements may not display. For this matter, you can override the css in the “PageComposer Only” folder.
  • My component is not selectable in Page Composer. Possible explanation: you may have something like content: '' in your css:
    .u-layout-cell:before,
    .u-container-style.u-opacity:before,
    .u-group.u-opacity:before {
      content: '';
      display: block;
      position: absolute;
      top: 0;
      bottom: 0;
      left: 0;
      right: 0;
    }
                    
    Solution: you need to remove the content: '' in your CSS file, or you can override it in Page Composer (see point above) and use content: none as the override.
  • The Jahia Starter Template won’t probably work with a left sidebar navigation menu. An alternative is to create the left navigation in the header absolute area, and use a combination of the PageComposerOnly and previewAndLive asset folders to hide or have a top version of the nav menu in Page Composer and have it on the left in preview and live
  • When an html file is referenced in a jnt:htmlCodeAsFile component, this component does not appear in the usage list of the file, making it hard to identify where an html file is used
  • It is still unclear how one can quickly integrate a search in a site built using the Jahia Starter Template

 

Improvement ideas

The following improvements are under consideration for future versions of the Jahia Starter Template. Don't hesitate to use the form at the bottom of the page to share your view about these improvements:

  • Make the HTML code (text/file) components editable only for developers or users with a specific permission
  • Automatically create Jahia content with the content of the tag
    • This would work for data-jahia-text and data-jahia-richtext attributes. When one of these attributes is found, Jahia would automatically creates a content of type jnt:Text or jnt:BigText, and the text value is the content of the tag.
  • Integrate a content/file picker for the HTML code (text) component
    • and/or make it easier to update an image of an <img> tag
  • Improve the asset management, so one does not need to rename the files to define their inclusion order
  • Display a message when creating an empty page
  • Visual tool to add the data-jahia-* attributes in a piece of HTML code, to ease the integration
  • Add a file editor in jContent, to directly edit files stored under /files
  • Store assets and html files in a different location than the /files folder of a site
  • Create already a folder to store the HTML files in the site, similarly to the structure we have for the assets
  • Make the absolute areas of the site editable only from the home page
  • Add a model section to the site, the same way as the site comes with an already created home page
  • Add the possibility to add content/area placeholder by using a comment in the html source