Sections
Sections are a Symphony project’s most fundamental building blocks, because they define the types of content that it will manage. Each section provides a model for the content entries it will contain, determining their structure by defining the fields that will comprise them.
General
Each section has two page types:
- The first page type is the section overview, which lists all entries in a table (default: 20 entries per page).
- The second page type is the individual view of an entry. This page is divided into a main area and a sidebar, where the fields can be inserted.
Navigation Group
To keep the backend navigation clear and easy to use, you can group related sections using the “Navigation Group.” This way, authors can quickly find the sections they need.
The “Navigation Group“ can be used to group sections that belong together thematically.
Example:
- “Content” contains the sections “News“ and “Page Content.”
- “Forms” contains the sections “Contact form” and “Support form.”
Field arrangement
In Sym8, the placement of new fields follows a clear logic:
- Main area: Only fields that contain the actual content of an entry (text input, textarea).
- Sidebar: Supplementary or control fields (e.g., HTML5 fields such as date, email, color, relation fields such as SBL, page field, uploads).
This keeps the structure of sections tidy, consistent, and easy to understand for developers and authors.
But of course, the fields can be moved from one area to another.
Text Input Field
If a text input field is located at the beginning of a section (first field), the handle of the entries is treated as unique: For entries with the same title, the handle is extended with a number (e.g., “Hello world” -> hello-world, “Hello world!” -> hello-world-1, “Hello world.” -> hello-world-2).
If the text input field is located anywhere within the section, the handle of the entries is not checked for uniqueness and is treated as a pure data field.
Create a new section
Tip for sections
It is recommend to use the fields checkbox as “online“ and date as “Published on“ in every section. This allows individual entries to be quickly taken online/offline. The date field can also be used to prepare content in advance (date is in the future), which is not possible with the system date.
To create a new section, go to “Blueprints” → “Sections” → “Create New”.
Naming
Choose clear and descriptive names so that the purpose of the section is immediately recognizable. This will help keep your project structured and maintainable, especially as it grows.
- Enter a name for the section (unique).
- Select a “Navigation Group“, where the section should appear. To create a new “Navigation Group“-entry, just type in the name of the new entry.
- Options:
- You can hide the section from the back-end menu.
- You can enable the filtering of section entries in the section overview.
- You can limit the number of entries in the field “Maximum entries” (
1orn). Leave the field blank for unlimited entries.
This field is provided by the extension “Limit Section Entries“. - Insert the fields and arrange and sort them.
- Create the section by clicking the button ”Create Section”.
You can add the following fields:
Checkbox
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Checked by default
- Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Color NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Default color
- Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
For the value see MDN Web Docs.
Date
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Default date (
now, optional, accepts absolute or relative dates) - Display time (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Date: Month NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Set current month as value (
optional) - Custom month (
optional) - Earliest year and month to accept (
optional) - Latest year and month (
optional) - Step (
1,2,3,any) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Browser support
Input type="month" is currently not supported by Firefox and Safari. To ensure accessibility and valid input, the following attributes are added to the rendered field in both the front end and the back end:
placeholder="yyyy-mm"aria-label="Please enter a month in the format “yyyy-mm”"
For the formatted value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Date: Time NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Set current time as value (
optional) - Custom time (
optional) - Earliest time to accept (
optional) - Latest time (
optional) - Step (
60,600,3600,7200,any) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
For the formatted value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Date: Week NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Set current week as value (
optional) - Custom week (
optional) - Earliest year and week to accept (
optional) - Latest year and week (
optional) - Step (
1,2,3,any) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Browser support
Input type="week" is currently not supported by Firefox and Safari. To ensure accessibility and valid input, the following attributes are added to the rendered field in both the front end and the back end:
placeholder="yyyy-Www"aria-label="Please enter a week in the format “yyyy-Www”"
For the formatted value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Email NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Placeholder (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
For the value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Entry Order
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Force manual sorting (
optional) - Disable Pagination (
optional) - Hide on publish page
- Display in entries table (
default)
This field is provided by the extension Order Entries.
Image Preview Settings
This field does not actually create a field, but ensures that an image preview is displayed instead of the linked file name.
The size of the image preview can be defined for both the table overview and the entry page:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Fields handles (Type * for all fields; Comma separated list for multiple fields)
- Table Preview settings:
- Width (JIT image manipulation width parameter)
- Height (JIT image manipulation height parameter)
- Resize (JIT image manipulation resize mode [1-3])
- Position (JIT image manipulation position parameter [1-9])
- Absolute (
optional)
- Entry Preview settings
- Width (JIT image manipulation width parameter)
- Height (JIT image manipulation height parameter)
- Resize (JIT image manipulation resize mode [1-3])
- Position (JIT image manipulation position parameter [1-9])
- Absolute (
optional)
This field is provided by the extensions Image Preview.
Number NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Minimum Value (
optional) - Maximum Value (
optional) - Step (
1,0.5,any) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Page Select Box
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Filter pages by type (
403,404,admin,hidden,index) - Allow selection of multiple options (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional) - Make this field checks pages are used only once (
optional)
This field is provided by the extension Pages Field.
Behavior of select fields
The behavior of the select fields in Sym8 has been adjusted: A field labeled “Please choose…” is inserted as the first option (disabled). This prevents the first entry from being saved accidentally, even if nothing has been selected.
Range NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Minimum Value (
optional) - Maximum Value (
optional) - Step (
1,2,3,any) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
For the value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Select Box
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Static Values (
optional) - Dynamic Values (
optional) - Allow selection of multiple options (
optional) - Sort all options alphabetically (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Behavior of select fields
The behavior of the select fields in Sym8 has been adjusted: A field labeled “Please choose…” is inserted as the first option (disabled). This prevents the first entry from being saved accidentally, even if nothing has been selected.
Note on the size attribute
The size attribute (e.g., when multiple is specified) is automatically limited to a maximum of 10 rows. Browsers such as Chrome or Firefox set their own lower limits, so that in practice no more than 5–10 rows are visible. Screen reader users, however, always have access to the full list of options.
Select Box Link
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Values (
optional) - Maximum entries (
20) - Allow selection of multiple options (
optional) - Display associations in entries table (
default) - Hide when prepopulated (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional)
This field is provided by the extension Select Box Link Field.
Behavior of select fields
The behavior of the select fields in Sym8 has been adjusted: A field labeled “Please choose…” is inserted as the first option (disabled). This prevents the first entry from being saved accidentally, even if nothing has been selected.
Tag List
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Suggestion List (
required) - Validation Rule (
number,email,URI) - Display associations in entries table (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Telephone NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Minlength (
optional) - Maxlength (
optional) - Placeholder (
optional) - Pattern (
optional, default pattern:digits, spaces, plus and minus signs only) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
default)
Patterns in telephone fields
If you define a pattern for the tel field, it must be written in curly braces. Since curly braces are interpreted as expressions in Sym8, they are masked in the generated front-end markup and appear as double curly braces. This is intentional and explained by an inline comment in the code — the browser will still interpret the pattern correctly.
For the value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Text Input
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Main content) - Validation Rule (
optional/legacy– Custom validation patterns are deprecated. Use HTML5 input types instead) - Placeholder (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional)
For the value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.
Textarea
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Main content) - Number of default rows (
15) - Text Formatter (
none) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional)
Upload: File
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Destination Directory (
workspace) - Validation Rule (
image,document,video,archive) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional)
Recommendation
For file uploads we recommend using the field Upload: Unique File. It ensures legal security by generating unique filenames for all uploaded files and improves the user experience by preventing conflicts when files with the same name are uploaded (browser caching).
Upload: Unique File
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Destination Directory (
workspace) - Validation Rule (
image,document,video,archive) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional)
This field is provided by the extensions Unique upload field.
URL NEW
Available parameters:
- Label (
required) - Handle (
unique) - Placement (
Sidebar) - Placeholder (
optional) - Make this a required field
- Display in entries table (
optional)
For the value and additional attributes see MDN Web Docs.