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Version: 2.0.0

Collections

tip

You can customize your collections based on the logged-in user, by defining them using a callback, as described in Navigation.

In FireCMS, collections represent groups of entities.

You can find collections at the top level of the navigation tree (the entries displayed in the home page and the navigation drawer), or as subcollections

The name and properties you define for your entity collection, will be used to generate the fields in the spreadsheet like collection tables, and the fields in the generated forms.

note

FireCMS provides around 20 different fields (such as text fields, selects, and complex ones like reference or sortable array fields). If your use case is not covered by one of the provided fields, you can create your own custom field.

You can find collection views as the first level of navigation in the main menu, or as subcollections inside other collections.

Check the full API reference in [Entity collections]

  • name The plural name of the collection. E.g. 'Products'.

  • singularName The singular name of an entry in the collection. E.g. ' Product'.

  • path Relative Firestore path of this view to its parent. If this view is in the root the path, it is equal to the absolute one. This path also determines the URL in FireCMS.

  • properties Object defining the properties for the entity schema. More information in Properties.

  • propertiesOrder Order in which the properties are displayed. If you are specifying your collection as code, the order is the same as the one you define in properties. Additional columns are added at the end of the list, if the order is not specified.

    • For properties use the property key.
    • For additional columns use the column id.
    • If you have subcollections, you get a column for each subcollection, with the path (or alias) as the subcollection, prefixed with subcollection:. e.g. subcollection:orders.
    • If you are using a collection group, you will also have an additional collectionGroupParent column.

    You can use this prop to hide some properties from the table view. Note that if you set this prop, other ways to hide fields, like hidden in the property definition,will be ignored. propertiesOrder has precedence over hidden.

  • formAutoSave If set to true, the form will be auto-saved when the user changes the value of a field. Defaults to false. You can't use this prop if you are using a customId

  • collectionGroup If this collection is a top level navigation entry, you can set this property to true to indicate that this collection is a collection group. From the Firestore documentation: "A collection group consists of all collections with the same ID. By default, queries retrieve results from a single collection in your database. Use a collection group query to retrieve documents from a collection group instead of from a single collection."

  • alias You can set an alias that will be used internally instead of the path. The alias value will be used to determine the URL of the collection, while path will still be used in the datasource. Note that you can use this value in reference properties too.

  • icon Icon key to use in this collection. You can use any of the icons in the MUI specs: https://mui.com/material-ui/material-icons/ e.g. 'AccountTree' or 'Person'

  • customId If this prop is not set, the ID of the document will be created by the datasource. You can set the value to 'true' to force the users to choose the ID. You can set the value to true to allow the users to choose the ID. You can also pass a set of values (as an EnumValues object) to allow users to pick from those only.

  • subcollections Following the Firestore document and collection schema, you can add subcollections to your entity in the same way you define the root collections.

  • defaultSize Default size of the rendered collection.

  • group Optional field used to group top level navigation entries under a navigation view. If you set this value in a subcollection, it has no effect.

  • description Optional description of this view. You can use Markdown.

  • filterCombinations If you need to filter/sort by multiple properties in this collection, you can define the supported filter combinations here. In the case of Firestore, you need to create special indexes in the console to support filtering/sorting by more than one property. You can then specify here the indexes created.

    filterCombinations: [
    { price: "desc", available: "desc" }
    ],
  • initialFilter Initial filters applied to this collection. Defaults to none. Filters applied with this prop can be changed by the user. e.g.

    initialFilter: { age: [ ">=", 18 ] }
  • forceFilter Force a filter in this view. If applied, the rest of the filters will be disabled. Filters applied with this prop cannot be changed. e.g.

    forceFilter: { age: [ ">=", 18 ] }
  • initialSort Default sort applied to this collection. It takes tuples in the shape ["property_name", "asc"] or ["property_name", "desc"]

  • Actions Builder for rendering additional components such as buttons in the collection toolbar. The builder takes an object with props entityCollection and selectedEntities if any are set by the end user.

  • pagination If enabled, content is loaded in batches. If false all entities in the collection are loaded. You can specify a number to specify the pagination size (50 by default) Defaults to true

  • additionalFields You can add additional fields to both the collection view, and the form view by implementing an additional field delegate.

  • textSearchEnabled Flag to indicate if a search bar should be displayed on top of the collection table. Please note that you need to add

  • permissions You can specify an object with boolean permissions with the shape {edit:boolean; create:boolean; delete:boolean} to indicate the actions the user can perform. You can also pass a [PermissionsBuilder] to customize the permissions based on user or entity.

  • inlineEditing Can the elements in this collection be edited inline in the collection view. If this flag is set to false but permissions.edit is true ,
    entities can still be edited in the side panel.

  • selectionEnabled Are the entities in this collection selectable. Defaults to true

  • selectionController Pass your own selection controller if you want to control selected entities externally. [useSelectionController]

  • exportable Should the data in this collection view include an export button. You can also set an [ExportConfig] configuration object to customize the export and add additional values. Defaults to true

  • hideFromNavigation Should this collection be hidden from the main navigation panel, if it is at the root level, or in the entity side panel if it's a subcollection. It will still be accessible if you reach the specified path. You can also use this collection as a reference target.

  • callbacks This interface defines all the callbacks that can be used when an entity is being created, updated or deleted. Useful for adding your own logic or blocking the execution of the operation.

  • views Array of builders for rendering additional panels in an entity view. Useful if you need to render custom views for your entities.

tip

You can force the CMS to always open the form when editing a document by setting the inlineEditing property to false in the collection configuration.

Sample collection​

tip

You don't need to use buildCollection or buildProperty for building the configuration. They are identity functions that will help you detect type and configuration errors

import {
buildCollection,
buildProperty,
EntityReference
} from "@firecms/core";

type Product = {
name: string;
main_image: string;
available: boolean;
price: number;
related_products: EntityReference[];
publisher: {
name: string;
external_id: string;
}
}

const productsCollection = buildCollection<Product>({
path: "products",
name: "Products",
group: "Main",
description: "List of the products currently sold in our shop",
textSearchEnabled: true,
properties: {
name: buildProperty({
dataType: "string",
name: "Name",
validation: { required: true }
}),
main_image: buildProperty({
dataType: "string",
name: "Image",
storage: {
mediaType: "image",
storagePath: "images",
acceptedFiles: ["image/*"],
metadata: {
cacheControl: "max-age=1000000"
}
},
description: "Upload field for images",
validation: {
required: true
}
}),
available: buildProperty({
dataType: "boolean",
name: "Available",
columnWidth: 100
}),
price: buildProperty(({ values }) => ({
dataType: "number",
name: "Price",
validation: {
requiredMessage: "You must set a price between 0 and 1000",
min: 0,
max: 1000
},
disabled: !values.available && {
clearOnDisabled: true,
disabledMessage: "You can only set the price on available items"
},
description: "Price with range validation"
})),
related_products: buildProperty({
dataType: "array",
name: "Related products",
description: "Reference to self",
of: {
dataType: "reference",
path: "products"
}
}),
publisher: buildProperty({
name: "Publisher",
description: "This is an example of a map property",
dataType: "map",
properties: {
name: {
name: "Name",
dataType: "string"
},
external_id: {
name: "External id",
dataType: "string"
}
}
})
},
// additionalFields: [productAdditionalField], // Example below
filterCombinations: [{ price: "desc", available: "desc" }],
permissions: ({ user, authController }) => ({
edit: true,
create: true,
delete: false
})
});

Additional columns​

If you would like to include a column that does not map directly to a property, you can use the additionalFields field, providing a AdditionalFieldDelegate, which includes an id, a title, and a builder that receives the corresponding entity.

In the builder you can return any React Component.

important

If your additional field depends on the value of another property of the entity you can define the dependencies prop as an array of property keys so that the data is always updated. This will trigger a rerender whenever there is a change in any of the specified property values.

Example​

import {
buildCollection,
buildCollection,
AdditionalFieldDelegate
} from "@firecms/core";

type User = { name: string }

export const fullNameAdditionalField: AdditionalFieldDelegate<User> = {
id: "full_name",
name: "Full Name",
builder: ({ entity }) => {
let values = entity.values;
return typeof values.name === "string" ? values.name.toUpperCase() : "No name provided";
},
dependencies: ["name"]
};

const usersCollection = buildCollection<User>({
path: "users",
name: "User",
properties: {
name: { dataType: "string", name: "Name" }
},
additionalFields: [
fullNameAdditionalField
]
});

Advanced example​

import {
buildCollection,
AdditionalFieldDelegate,
AsyncPreviewComponent
} from "@firecms/core";

export const productAdditionalField: AdditionalFieldDelegate<Product> = {
id: "spanish_title",
title: "Spanish title",
builder: ({ entity, context }) =>
<AsyncPreviewComponent builder={
context.dataSource.fetchEntity({
path: entity.path,
entityId: entity.id,
collection: localeSchema
}).then((entity) => entity.values.name)
}/>
};
tip

AsyncPreviewComponent is a utility component provided by FireCMS that allows you to render the result of an async computation (such as fetching data from a subcollection, like in this case). It will display a skeleton loading indicator in the meantime.

Subcollections​

Subcollections are collections of entities that are found under another entity. For example, you can have a collection named "translations" under the entity "Article". You just need to use the same format as for defining your collection using the field subcollections.

Subcollections are easily accessible from the side view while editing an entity.

Filters​

tip

If you need to have some filters and sorting applied by default you can use the initialFilter and initialSort prop. You can also force a filter combination to be always applied by using the forceFilter prop.

Filtering is enabled by default for string, numbers, booleans, timestamps and arrays. A dropdown is included in every column of the collection where applicable.

Since Firestore has limited querying capabilities, each time to apply a filter or new sort, the previous sort/filter combination gets reset by default (unless filtering, sorting by the same property).

If you need to enable filtering/sorting by more than one property at a time, you can specify the filters that you have enabled in your Firestore configuration. In order to do so, just pass the indexes configuration to your collection:

import { buildCollection } from "@firecms/core";

const productsCollection = buildCollection<Product>({
path: "products",
name: "Product",
properties: {
// ...
},
indexes: [
{
price: "asc",
available: "desc"
}
]
});
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