plone.volto

plone.volto configures Plone to work with Volto, the default frontend of Plone since version 6.0.

Installation

Add plone.volto either to the Plone installation using pip:

pip install plone.volto

or add it as a dependency in your package's setup.py:

    install_requires = [
        "plone.volto",
        "setuptools",
    ],

Compatibility

plone.volto version 5.x works with Plone 6.1 (pre-alpha and alpha), and supports Python 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12.

Volto requires specific versions of plone.volto and plone.restapi:

plone.volto	Plone	plone.restapi	Comments
5.x	6.1	8.41.0 and above
4.x	5.2, 6.0	8.41.0 and above
3.x	5.1, 5.2	8.13.0 and above	Requires new JSONSummarySerializerMetadata serializer added in plone.restapi 8.13.
2.x (kitconcept.volto)	5.1, 5.2	7.0.0 and above	New image scales
1.x (kitconcept.volto)	5.1, 5.2	6.0.0 and below	New transforms and features

Volto only supports the latest plone.restapi branch, therefore it is recommended to always use the latest version in your Volto projects.

Plone 6 architecture

Architectural diagram of Plone 6:

    Frontend
    ┌──────────────────────────────┐
    │                              │
    │            Volto             │
    │                              │
    └────────┬────────────┬────────┘
             │            ▲
             │    HTTP    │
    Backend  ▼            │
    ┌────────┴────────────┴────────┐
    │┌────────────────────────────┐│
    ││        plone.restapi       ││
    │└────────────────────────────┘│
    │┌────────────────────────────┐│
    ││         plone.volto        ││
    │└────────────────────────────┘│
    │┌────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐│
    ││ Plone Core │ │   Add-Ons   ││
    │└────────────┘ └─────────────┘│
    └──────────────────────────────┘

Features

plone.volto provides the following features:

Volto blocks support

plone.volto enables the new Volto blocks editor on Document, Language Root Folder, and Site Root.

Block types index

plone.volto adds a block_types index to the Plone catalog. It can be used to query for items that use a particular type of block.

from plone import api
portal_catalog = api.portal.get_tool("portal_catalog")
portal_catalog.searchResults(block_types="image")

The block_types index was added in plone.volto 4.1.0. By default it is only added for new Plone sites. To add it to an existing site, run plone.volto.upgrades.add_block_types_index manually.

Multilingual support

plone.volto supports multilingual websites. Install PAM before installing this package, and demo homepages will be created in each enabled language. Support is currently only for EN and DE.

Document content type

plone.volto disables the Richtext and Table of Contents behaviors for the Document content type. Rich text functionality is provided by the new Volto blocks editor. The Table of Contents functionality is provided by the Table of Contents block in Volto.

CORS profile

A quick helper to enable CORS for development configuration is also provided in the plone.volto module. You can call:

<include package="plone.volto.cors" />

from your ZCML while developing.

Enable it on demand, since it's considered a security issue if you enable CORS in your productions sites.

It's planned that Volto will feature a development pass-through proxy to the backend in the future. It will be addressed in next sprints.

ZLog patch

plone.restapi low level errors are routed through the ancient ZLog and are plone_error enabled, making it difficult to follow since all are marked with a UUID, specifically when using helpers like Sentry. This patch removes the UUID so the same error is categorized all together. This is planned to be addressed in next sprints.

Patch for subject field

There are some problems of serialization on special characters derived from the current shape of the Plone's default Dexterity subjects field that have to be addressed in order to make it work properly with Volto (and other systems that are not Plone). This will be fixed in core in upcoming sprints.

Preview image behavior

The preview image behavior makes content types provide a preview_image field that can store a preview image that Volto views can pick up. This is especially useful for listings (e.g. listing block customizations) and teaser elements (e.g. teaser blocks).

The volto.preview_image behavior can be enabled in the generic setup XML definition of a content type (e.g. /profiles/default/types/MyContentType.xml):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<object i18n:domain="my.project" meta_type="Dexterity FTI" name="MyContentType"
  xmlns:i18n="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/i18n">

  ...

  <!-- Enabled behaviors -->
  <property name="behaviors" purge="false">
    ...
    <element value="volto.preview_image" />
  </property>
  ...
</object>

There is also another variation of the preview image behavior called volto.preview_image_link. This one stores preview images using a relation to an image content type, rather than in an image field. This might be preferable if many content items use the same preview image.

Navigation title behavior

The navigation title makes content types provide a nav_title field that is used by Volto in the main navigation, the breadcrumbs, and the navigation portlet.

The volto.navtitle behavior can be enabled in the generic setup XML definition of a content type, for example in /profiles/default/types/MyContentType.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<object i18n:domain="my.project" meta_type="Dexterity FTI" name="MyContentType"
  xmlns:i18n="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/i18n">

  ...

  <!-- Enabled behaviors -->
  <property name="behaviors" purge="false">
    ...
    <element value="volto.navtitle" />
  </property>
  ...
</object>

Kicker behavior

The volto.kicker behavior adds a Kicker field that can be used to display a line of text above the title.

(The internal name of the field is head_title, for backwards-compatibility reasons.)

This behavior can be enabled in the generic setup XML definition of a content type, for example in /profiles/default/types/MyContentType.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<object i18n:domain="my.project" meta_type="Dexterity FTI" name="MyContentType"
  xmlns:i18n="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/i18n">

  ...

  <!-- Enabled behaviors -->
  <property name="behaviors" purge="false">
    ...
    <element value="volto.kicker" />
  </property>
  ...
</object>

Note

The previous name of this behavior, volto.head_title, was deprecated in plone.volto 5.0.

Image scales

This package introduces new Plone image scales in Plone and redefines a couple of existing ones. These are know to work well with the Volto layout and grid system:

Scale	Dimensions
icon	32:32
tile	64:64
thumb	128:128
mini	200:65536
preview	400:65536
teaser	600:65536
large	800:65536
larger	1000:65536
great	1200:65536
huge	1600:65536

This change is opinionated and may collide with your previously defined ones, so make sure your add-on's profiles are applied AFTER this one.

History

The code of plone.volto has been under active development and is used in production since 2018. It was first named kitconcept.voltodemo (deprecated since March, 5th 2020), then kitconcept.volto. In September 2021 kitconcept.volto was renamed to plone.volto, and was contributed to the Plone core as part of PLIP #2703.

This project is supported by

License

The project is licensed under the GPLv2.