Content Editor items
In XM Cloud, itemsitems are the building blocks of your content management. This topic describes the site collection, site, and custom items available in the Content Editor.
The site collection items
When you create a site collection using the collection creation wizard, XM Cloud creates templates and media content, with the paths stored on the site collection item you just created.
The site items
The site creation wizard generates the structure of the site, not just a home item, but also a Data folder for shared content, a Media item for all site-specific media items, and a Settings and Presentation node for configuration and presentation details that you define at the site level.
The site folder has the following subfolders:
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Home - contains the site pages and the presentation elements.
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Media - shows a scoped view of the Media Library that includes all the media items available for the site, such as images, animations, movies, PDFs, and so on. The media items do not exist physically in this folder but are references to the Media Library folders assigned to the site.
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Data - contains the data sources that can be reused across multiple pages within the website. The Data folder provides a location for shared data source content at the site level, and organizes this content by rendering type. Only the components that you selected in the Site creation wizard have a Data container folder.
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Dictionary - a site-specific collection of words and phrases that you enter into the system as dictionary entries that can be translated and reused in your site. Commonly, this includes recurring user interface elements, such as a button labeled Submit or a Contact section. You can use GraphQL queries to retrieve dictionary entries from Experience Edge.
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Presentation - contains settings and presentation details for features that you selected when you created the site.
The following table describes the items in the Presentation subfolder:
Item
Description
Available Renderings
Lists the renderings that are available in the Experience Editor.
You can change the structure of the components within the toolbox. This can be convenient when you want to move a component category that you use often to the top of the list or if you want to change the order of the components within the category.
Headless Variants
Lists all renderings within your site that support variants. You can add rendering variants to the subfolders of this item.
Page Branches
Create page branches to define preconfigured pages that content authors can use as templates for their pages.
Page Designs
Partial Designs
Contains your custom partial designs. Create and change a partial design by modifying this item's children.
Placeholder Settings
Set placeholder restrictions for your layout placeholders. These restrictions are applied on all pages in the site. This item is also a container for placeholder restriction items that you can assign to dynamic placeholders in Experience Editor.
Styles
XM Cloud comes with preset styles for renderings. You can add, edit, and delete styles. In the Style section of each style you can add the renderings that can use that style.
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Settings - contains configuration details.
The following table describes the items in the Settings subfolder:
Item
Description
Redirects
Shared Site Settings
View delegated areas. Do not edit this section manually.
Site Grouping
Children of this folder provide a Sitecore Site host. These are equivalent to Sitecore
<site>nodes that you would define within your config file if you were building the site manually.You can add custom providers here, and select different link providers for different sites. This can be useful when you have multiple sites that all have different link requirements.
Sitemap
Configure the sitemap for your site.
Standard Values
Define standard values specific to the current site. When you create new pages under that site, the standard values you have created are used by default.
The custom items
When you create custom modules, consider where to store your custom items. When XM Cloud is updated, standard folders are overwritten. Therefore, placing custom items in tree branches controlled by XM Cloud can result in your instance being broken after an upgrade.
The folders are:
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Foundation - contains base logic shared by multiple feature modules.
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Feature - contains concrete features of the solution as understood by the business owners and editors of the solution.
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Project - provides the context of the solution. Whenever you create a new site collection it automatically generates a Project structure similar to the following example:
The templates in the Project folder depend on the modules you choose in the Site collection creation wizard. However, we recommend you don't change any out-of-the-box items in the Foundation and Feature folders, as this might break XM Cloud functionality.