Is there anywhere online where one can find how to create custom blocks in the same way we can create custom content types in Wordpress. The desired result is to add a block that will allow the user to add/edit custom fields like client name, portfolio description, portfolio thumbnail.
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2 Answers
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I've created a free tool called "Designer Content" that lets you easily generate these custom blocks: http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/designer-content
That being said, it is important to understand this key concept: In Concrete5, everything revolves around PAGES. In general, you want to try to establish an architecture where each piece of data is represented on its own page (a "details" page, which would roughly equate to a single blog post in Wordpress). Then you use the Page List block (usually creating a custom template for it to modify its look) to list out titles, links, and excerpts/photos from each of those "details" pages on a top-level "index" page (roughly equivalant to the home page or category archive in Wordpress).
For example, if you're building a portfolio site, you might want one top-level "Portfolio" page that shows a thumbnail and title of each piece, then a "Portfolio Item Detail" page type that contains one piece per page -- each living underneath the top-level "portfolio" index page.
The benefits of this approach are C5 gives you out-of-the-box tools to manage your "data" (pages) in this way -- users can add, edit, delete, and rearrange the pages via the "Sitemap" in the dashboard. Site search works without any modification -- each page (i.e. portfolio piece) will be its own search result with a link to a specific page. Also you then have more fine-grained control over access permissions if you ever decide to restrict access to only certain groups of people (registered users, etc.).
If you take this approach, you might find the "Page List Teasers" addon helpful (it will let the Page List block -- which you're using for your top-level "index" page -- to show actual content excepts from the pages instead of just a separate "description" field): http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/page-list-teasers
Or if you want to dive deeper and customize the page list template even more, I have a starting template with a ton of code comments in it explaining how to do different things here: https://github.com/jordanlev/c5_clean_block_templates/blob/master/page_list/view.php
But... if you're only talking about small amounts of information and you think a separate page for each one is overkill, then the Designer Content approach I linked to first will work just fine.
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You can find a HOW-TO on creating new blocks written by Franz Maruna on the concrete5 website.
Here is the link: Creating a New Block Type
There is also a simple block you can download and install to help you follow the developer tutorials. You can find that here: Simple block template
