structure-content

Slices & Article Content

Article content in REDAXO consists of "slices" – ordered instances of modules with their REX_VALUE / REX_MEDIA / REX_LINK data filled in. Slices are stored in rex_article_slice.

For most use cases, you don't manipulate slices directly – the backend UI handles it. The API matters when:

• Importing content from external sources
• Cloning or templating content across articles
• Building custom workflows (e.g. duplicate to all languages)

Reading a slice

rex_article_slice provides one slice at a time:

$slice = rex_article_slice::getSliceById($sliceId);
echo $slice->getModuleId();
echo $slice->getValue(1);   // REX_VALUE[1]
echo $slice->getMedia(1);   // REX_MEDIA[1] – returns filename string
echo $slice->getMedialist(1); // comma-separated filenames
echo $slice->getLink(1);    // REX_LINK[1] – article ID as string
echo $slice->getLinklist(1);

Listing slices of an article

$slices = rex_article_slice::getSlicesForArticle($articleId, $clangId);
foreach ($slices as $slice) {
    echo "Slice #{$slice->getId()} module #{$slice->getModuleId()}\n";
}

Adding a slice programmatically

Use rex_content_service::addSlice() so the priority shift, cache invalidation, and SLICE_ADDED extension point all happen.

$articleId = 42;
$clangId   = rex_clang::getCurrentId();
$ctype     = 1;  // content area (templates may define multiple)
$moduleId  = 7;

$data = [
    'value1' => 'Hello world',
    'value2' => 'Some longer text',
    'media1' => 'hero.jpg',
    'link1'  => '5',
];

$sliceId = rex_content_service::addSlice($articleId, $clangId, $ctype, $moduleId, $data);

The $data keys are value1–value20, media1–media10, medialist1–medialist10, link1–link10, linklist1–linklist10.

Editing / deleting

rex_content_service::editSlice($sliceId, [
    'value1' => 'Updated headline',
]);

rex_content_service::deleteSlice($sliceId);

Moving (re-ordering)

rex_content_service::moveSlice($sliceId, 'up');   // or 'down'

For exact priority, edit priority directly:

rex_content_service::editSlice($sliceId, ['priority' => 3]);

Cloning content between languages

Common workflow: "create a German article, then duplicate its slices into the English variant for translation".

function copySlicesAcrossClang(int $articleId, int $fromClang, int $toClang): void
{
    $slices = rex_article_slice::getSlicesForArticle($articleId, $fromClang);
    foreach ($slices as $slice) {
        $data = [
            'priority' => $slice->getPriority(),
        ];
        for ($i = 1; $i <= 20; $i++) {
            $data['value' . $i] = $slice->getValue($i);
        }
        for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
            $data['media' . $i]     = $slice->getMedia($i);
            $data['medialist' . $i] = $slice->getMedialist($i);
            $data['link' . $i]      = $slice->getLink($i);
            $data['linklist' . $i]  = $slice->getLinklist($i);
        }
        rex_content_service::addSlice(
            $articleId,
            $toClang,
            $slice->getCtype(),
            $slice->getModuleId(),
            $data
        );
    }
}

Copy a whole article

rex_article_service::copyArticle() clones the article record only. To clone with content, follow up with rex_content_service::copyContent():

$newId = rex_article_service::copyArticle($sourceId, $targetCategoryId);
rex_content_service::copyContent($sourceId, $newId, $clangId, $clangId);

Rendering article content from PHP

Inside templates, use REX_ARTICLE[]. Outside (e.g. cron job, CLI), use rex_article_content:

$content = new rex_article_content($articleId, $clangId);
$content->setTemplateId(0); // 0 = no template wrapper
$html = $content->getArticle();

This is how RSS-feed addons, search indexers, and PDF exporters extract article HTML.

Common pitfalls

• Inserting slices via raw SQL – misses priority shifting and cache flush, leading to broken ordering and stale cached pages.
• Forgetting ctype – defaults to 1, which works only if your template defines a single content area.
• Hardcoding module IDs in code – they differ between staging and production. Look them up by name on first run and cache:

$sql = rex_sql::factory();
$sql->setQuery('SELECT id FROM ' . rex::getTable('module') . ' WHERE name = ?', ['Hero banner']);
$moduleId = $sql->getRows() ? (int) $sql->getValue('id') : null;

• Calling getValue(0) instead of getValue(1) – placeholders are 1-indexed.