Data files view

Data files/folders are pieces of content that do not belong to any markdown content, but live on their own. Most of the time, these data files are used to store additional information about your project/blog/website that will be used to render the content.

For example:

• navigation
• social media links
• contacts
• etc.

The data files dashboard allows you to quickly manage your data files.

Settings

To use the data files dashboard, you need to configure the extension with the following settings:

• frontMatter.data.files: Defines how a single data file.
• frontMatter.data.folders: Defines that all files of a folder need to be treated the same. It can also be used to create new data files.
• frontMatter.data.types: This only defines the object and its fields. Use this setting, if you want to re-use a data type in various files/folders.

frontMatter.data.files settings

The frontMatter.data.files setting is used to define how a single data file should be treated.

The following properties can be defined:

frontMatter.data.folders settings

The frontMatter.data.folders setting is used to define how a folder with data files should be treated.

The following properties can be defined:

frontMatter.data.types settings

The frontMatter.data.types setting is used to define re-usable data types.

The following properties can be defined:

Data fields schema

Each setting requires a schema definition. The schema is defined using the JSON Schema standard.

The following field types are supported:

• string
• number
• boolean
• array
• object

When you are using the string type, you can use the multiline property to define if the field is a multiline field.

Registering data files

When you have a data file in which you hold information like for example a list of authors (authors.json), you can register this file in the frontMatter.data.files setting as follows:

{
  "frontMatter.data.files": [{
    "id": "authors",
    "title": "Authors",
    "file": "[[workspace]]/data/authors.json",
    "labelField": "name",
    "singleEntry": false,
    "schema": {
      "title": "Authors",
      "type": "object",
      "required": [
        "name",
        "url"
      ],
      "properties": {
        "name": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "Name"
        },
        "url": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "URL"
        },
        "description": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "Description"
        }
      }
    }
  }]
}

Important

The singleEntry setting is used to define if the data file is a single entry or a not.

The above sample can be used to manage author data in the authors.json file. Each author record contains a url, name, and description as properties.

[
  {
    "name": "Elio Struyf",
    "url": "https://www.eliostruyf.com",
    "description": "Elio is a Microsoft MVP, GitHub Star, and a Google Developer Expert."
  }
]

Info

Use the [[workspace]] placeholder to define the workspace folder. The extension will automatically replace this with the workspace folder path.

Registering data folders

When you have a folder with multiple data files of the same type, you can register this folder in the frontMatter.data.folders setting as follows:

{
  "frontMatter.data.folders": [{
    "id": "authors",
    "path": "[[workspace]]/data/authors",
    "singleEntry": true,
    "enableFileCreation": true,
    "fileType": "json",
    "schema": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "name": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "Name"
        },
        "url": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "URL"
        },
        "description": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "Description"
        }
      }
    }
  }]
}

Important

when using data folders, the extension searches for yml, yaml, and json files in the folder.

As the singleEntry setting is set to true. Each data file contains a single entry.

{
  "name": "Elio Struyf",
  "url": "https://eliostruyf.com",
  "description": "Elio is a Microsoft MVP, GitHub Star, and a Google Developer Expert."
}

Data file creation support

When you have the enableFileCreation property set to true on the folder, you can create new data files directly from the data dashboard. When you open the data dashboard, you will be prompted to create a new data file (if no files are available yet).

Once the file is created, you can start managing the data.

On the main data view, you can see all the data files that are available in the folder.

Re-usable data types

In the above examples, you could see that the data schema is defined in both the file and folder settings. If you want to re-use the schema, you can define the schema in the frontMatter.data.types setting.

You can define the data type as follows:

{
  "frontMatter.data.types": [{
    "id": "author",
    "schema": {
      "title": "Author",
      "type": "object",
      "required": [
        "name",
        "url"
      ],
      "properties": {
        "name": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "Name"
        },
        "url": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "URL"
        },
        "description": {
          "type": "string",
          "title": "Description"
        }
      }
    }
  }]
}

The ID of the data type can be used in the frontMatter.data.files and frontMatter.data.folders settings by defining it as the type property.

Cofiguring the data file

{
  "frontMatter.data.files": [{
    "id": "authors",
    "title": "Authors",
    "file": "[[workspace]]/data/authors.json",
    "labelField": "name",
    "singleEntry": false,
    "type": "author"
  }]
}

Configuring the data folder

{
  "frontMatter.data.folders": [{
    "id": "authors",
    "path": "[[workspace]]/data/authors",
    "singleEntry": true,
    "enableFileCreation": true,
    "fileType": "json",
    "type": "author"
  }]
}