Page Builder

Page Builder provides a user-friendly interface where non-technical users can manage content using configurable widgets prepared by the developers.

Use Page Builder when you want to allow editors to create visually captivating pages and experiment with the design and layout. To learn more about scenarios suitable for the feature, see Content modeling.

To start using Page Builder:

1. Enable the Page Builder feature
2. Create pages with editable areas
3. Implement and register widgets
4. Implement and register sections (layouts for widgets)

Page Builder components

The Page Builder framework consists of several components, which fit together in the following hierarchy. Additionally, widget zones can contain any number of widgets.

Enable the Page Builder feature

To use Page Builder, you need to enable it as a feature in your Xperience project.

1. Open your Xperience project in Visual Studio.

2. Enable the Page Builder feature by performing the following calls in your application’s startup class.

   1. Within AddKentico, call UsePageBuilder.

   2. Add the content types you want to use Page Builder with into PageBuilderOptions.ContentTypeNames. You can use the CONTENT_TYPE_NAME property from generated classes to access the content type identifier.

   3. Make sure your middleware pipeline reflects the sample below.

      C#

      Program.cs

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       using Kentico.Web.Mvc;
       using Kentico.Content.Web.Mvc;
       using Kentico.PageBuilder.Web.Mvc;  
      
       WebApplicationBuilder builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
      
       ...  
      
       builder.Services.AddKentico(features =>
       {     
           features.UsePageBuilder(new PageBuilderOptions
           {
               ContentTypeNames = new[]
               {
                   // Enables Page Builder for content types using their generated classes
                   LandingPage.CONTENT_TYPE_NAME,
                   ContactsPage.CONTENT_TYPE_NAME
               }
           }); 
       });  
      
       builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews();
      
       ...
      
       // Middleware pipeline configuration
       WebApplication app = builder.Build();
      
       app.InitKentico();
       app.UseStaticFiles();
       app.UseKentico();
      
       ...
      
       app.Kentico().MapRoutes();
      
       

3. (Optional) Edit the project’s Views\_ViewImports.cshtml file (or a more specific file, depending on your configuration) and add a using statement for the Kentico.PageBuilder.Web.Mvc namespace (together with any other frequently used namespaces).

   • The namespace allows you to easily access Page Builder extension methods in the code of your views.

   • Alternatively, you can add using statements for the namespace directly in the code of individual views.

     cshtml

     _ViewImports.cshtml

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       @using Kentico.Web.Mvc
       @using Kentico.PageBuilder.Web.Mvc
     
       

   • Some extension methods from the Page Builder API are also provided as ASP.NET Core Tag Helpers. See Reference - Tag Helpers for details. You can include Tag Helpers in your _ViewImports.cshtml files using the @addTagHelperdirective (in the same manner as adding using statements). This makes the included Tag Helpers available within all views that fall under the corresponding _ViewImports.cshtml file in the hierarchy. 

     cshtml

     _ViewImports.cshtml

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       @* Adds all Tag Helpers from the Kentico.Content.Web.Mvc assembly *@
       @addTagHelper *, Kentico.Content.Web.Mvc
     
       

The basic Page Builder feature is now enabled. You can prepare pages with editable areas in your Core project and start developing widgets and sections.

Page Builder security

Content Security Policy

Content Security Policy (CSP) is a security policy implemented by all modern browsers that provides an additional layer of security to detect and mitigate certain types of attacks, including cross site scripting (XSS).

CSP is currently supported in Xperience by Kentico with certain limitations. It is possible to use CSP on certain pages, but any HTML document that includes any of the following:

• Page Builder content
• Widgets rendered in code (including the Form widget)

requires enabling unsafe-eval and unsafe-inline CSP attributes, which needs to be considered carefully.