Custom content inheritance question

[kgroneman]

When I'm looking at custom content deep within the community, how can I tell if the content is specific to that page or inherited from a higher page?  It makes a difference when someone asks me to tweak the content. 

[TariqHussain]

@kgroneman - Unfortunately this is not feasible unless you make the custom content blank at specific node. 

As if you set custom content at higher node all the custom content at the lower node also get updated with the same content. 

[kgroneman]

Let me see if I understand what you're saying:  If I blank out everything in a custom content box at a lower level and save it, it will then contain/show the content that it's inheriting?   In other words, any blank custom content box will inherit anything defined above it?

Unfortunate that you can't see if it's inherited or not. 😞

[TariqHussain]

@kgroneman - if you will blank out content at lower node it will not inherit content from upper node. It will show blank text. 

The only possible way to achieve this to check if you have the same content at higher level. 

There are rest api call to get custom content. 

Steps 

1. Get custom content at current level. 

You can use settings.name or API to fetch custom.consnt . 

2. Get custom content at higher node.

/restapi/vc/settings/name/customcontent.1_text 

3. Compare both text. If it is same this means it is being inherited from top level. 

Below is the API calls, which allow you to get custom content at board level , at category level or at root level. 

https://community.lithium.com/t5/Custom-Content/Getting-Custom-Content-via-the-REST-API/ta-p/90582

[JasonHill]

I always find it's easiest to work from the highest level on the community, then work your way down through the categories and boards to ensure you have the appropriate content at the level you require. 

Jason

[DanK]

I have this issue also and like @JasonHill I start there and work backwards up the structure until I find where it came from. Almost all of our custom content is set at the Community level for this reason.

I think there should be a little icon next to custom content field title that indicates this was inherited (perhaps clickable to take you to the node where it is coming from). Would be a QOL improvement for admins.

[CarolineS]

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@DanK wrote:
I think there should be a little icon next to custom content field title that indicates this was inherited (perhaps clickable to take you to the node where it is coming from). Would be a QOL improvement for admins.

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Love this idea!!!!

[kgroneman]

Yes, some sort of icon or indicator that shows it's inherited would be great.  In the meantime, going forward I'm going to put some commented text in the custom content blocks to indicate where it was defined so I can readily see if it's inheritied.  Something like this:

<!-- Community Root -->
or
<!-- ITOM Category -->

I just need to take the time to go do it.   I wish Lithium would show it instead.   Thanks for the discussion everyone!

[CarolineS]

Great idea, @kgroneman!