Code refinement on checking a field for content and outputting an alternative

Question

I'm setting up SEO fields (of which there are quite a few) using Matrix.

My plan is to offer the user the option to adjust the SEO on a page-by-page basis. This could become unwieldy and the user might not always add the SEO information. So to assist i've created a 'default' SEO entry which will always append unless the user makes changes.

So, the basic setup is "If the field has content, use it. If not, use the default"

At the moment i have the following code (just done the title field so far), but you can see that this will become a lot of {{ ifelse }}, {{ if not }}, {{ for block }}, {{ endfor }}... etc..

So my question is, can this be refined into something much less intensive?

{% for block in entry.seoSettings %}

                {% if block.type == "seoBasics" %}



                    {% if not block.seoPageTitle|length %}
                        {% for entry in craft.entries.section('defaultSeo').find() %}
                            {% for block in entry.seoSettings %}
                                <title>{{ block.seoPageTitle }}</title>
                            {% endfor %}
                        {% endfor %}
                    {% else %}
                        <title>{{ block.seoPageTitle }}</title>
                    {% endif %}


                    <meta name="description" content="{{ block.seoDescription }}" />
                    <meta name="google-site-verification" content="{{ block.googleVerificationNumber }}" />
                    <meta name="msvalidate.01" content="{{ block.bingVerificationNumber }}" />

                {% elseif block.type == "seoAdditional" %}

                    <link rel="canonical" href="{{ block.seoCanonicalLinks }}" />
                    <meta name="robots" content="{{ block.seoRobotContent }}" />

                {% elseif block.type == "seoGeographic" %}

                    <meta name="geo.region" content="{{ seoGeoRegion }}" />
                    <meta name="geo.placename" content="{{ seoGeoPlacename }}" />
                    <meta name="geo.position" content="{{ seoGeoLattitude }};{{ seoGeoLongitude }}" />
                    <meta name="ICBM" content="{{ seoGeoLattitude }}, {{ seoGeoLongitude }}" />

               {% elseif block.type == "seoOpenGraph" %}

                    <meta property="og:title" content="{{ block.ogTitle }}" />
                    <meta property="og:description" content="{{ block.ogDescription }}" />
                    <meta property="og:type" content="{{ block.ogType }}" />
                    <meta property="og:url" content="{{ block.ogUrl }}" />
                    <meta property="og:image" content="{% for image in block.ogImage %}{{ image.getUrl() }}{% endfor %}" />
                    <meta property="og:author" content="{{ block.ogAuthor }}" />
                    <meta property="og:site_name" content="{{ block.ogSiteName }}" />
                    <meta property="og:locale" content="{{ block.ogLocale }}" />
                    <meta property="og:locale:alternate" content="{{ block.ogAlternativeLocale }}" />
                    <meta property="fb:admins" content="{{ block.ogFacebookAdmin }}"/>

                {% elseif block.type == "twitterCard" %}

                    <meta name="twitter:card" content="{{ block.twitterCard }}" />
                    <meta name="twitter:title" content="{{ block.twitterTitle }}" />
                    <meta name="twitter:description" content="{{ block.twitterDescription }}" />
                    <meta name="twitter:site" content="{{ block.twitterSite }}">
                    <meta name="twitter:creator" content="{{ block.twitterCreator }}">
                    <meta name="twitter:url" content="{{ block.twitterUrl }}" />
                    <meta name="twitter:image" content="{% for image in block.twitterImage %}{{ image.getUrl() }}{% endfor %}" />

                {% elseif block.type == "googlePlus" %}

                    <meta itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/{{ block.schemaPageType }}" />
                    <meta itemprop="name" content="{{ block.schemaName }}" />
                    <meta itemprop="description" content="{{ block.schemaDescription }}" />
                    <meta itemprop="image" content="{% for image in block.schemaImage %}{{ image.getUrl() }}{% endfor %}" />

                {% elseif block.type == "rdPartyVerification" %}

                    <meta name="{{ block.partyName }}" content="{{ block.partyContent }}"/>

                {% endif %}

              {% endfor %}

I hope that makes sense?

Many thanks

Martin

Answer 1

We do something similar to the setup you have here, whereby if the SEO fields haven't been filled for an entry the default is used, but there is a cleaner way of doing this, especially for your clients when they want to go in and make changes.

Globals would be a perfect fit for what you are after. In your Global settings, create a new one called 'SEO' or similar, and in there create your fields for the various SEO attributes.

Globals allow you to define content and information which can be accessed from anywhere on the site, and by doing this would mean you will no longer need the DefaultSEO entry you have created.

All of the default information you have set in the Default SEO entry can instead be set in the Globals section, which makes for a cleaner experience for you clients.

I think with the very rich SEO set up you have here, you can't really get round having the if statements in your templates, as this is how matrix fields work.

But as I say, you can really tidy things up by using Globals instead:

{% if block.type == "seoBasics" %} 

    {# If a page title has been set for this entry, use that #}
    {% if block.seoPageTitle | length %}
        <title>{{ block.seoPageTitle }}</title>

    {# If it hasn't, use the default page title from the SEO Global #}
    {% else %}
        <title>{{ seo.seoPageTitle }}</title>

    {% endif %}

I hope this helps you in the right direction, if you have any questions then let me know.

Answer 2

Thanks to the outstanding support from Pixel and Tonic I can answer this with code supplied by Brad at P&T. Also thanks to Jamie for looking into this.

{% for block in entry.seoInfo %}
    {% if block.type == "seoBasics" %}

        {% if block.seoPageTitle | length %}
            <title>{{ block.seoPageTitle }}</title>
        {% else %}
            {% for block in seoSettings.seoInfo.type('seoBasics') %}
                <title>{{ block.seoPageTitle }}</title>
            {% endfor %}
        {% endif %}
    {% endif %}
{% endfor %}