CMS collections

A collection is like a database — it's where content can be stored and referenced throughout a project dynamically. Different collections signify different content types, and an individual piece of content within a collection is called a collection item. For example, you can have a collection of blog posts, authors, clients, projects, and so on. For Ecommerce projects, you’ll also have collections for products and categories.

In this lesson

1. Create a collection
2. Edit a collection
3. Create collection items
4. ‍Design with collections

Create a collection

You can create CMS collections in the CMS panel. Ecommerce collections are created automatically in the Ecommerce panel.

Collection settings

To complete the creation of your new collection, give it a name, choose a slug for the URL structure, and create the data structure by either choosing a template or adding custom collection fields.

Collection templates

If you’re not sure what content structure you need for the collection, you can use one of our preset collection templates to get started. Each of these templates has their own set of fields which you can add to or delete from as needed.

Ecommerce collections come with a set of default fields which aren't visible in the collection structure under collection fields. You can add more collection fields but you cannot remove any of the defaults.

Collection name

Once you specify the name of your collection, singular and plural versions of the name will be generated and used in different places throughout the project. The collection name can be customized at any time.

Collection URL

The next step is to specify the collection URL (slug) which is the name of the folder that your collection pages will be stored in. The text you specify here will determine the URL structure of your collection pages — all the pages generated for each collection item. This URL can be the same as the singular or plural version of the collection name or it can be customized.

For example, if you’re creating a collection of “Blog Posts,” you can name the collection URL “blog-post,” so it reads yourwebsite.com/blog-post/blog-post-page. Or, you can name the collection URL “blog” so it reads website.com/blog/blog-post-article.

Rename the Collection URL

You can rename the collection URLs whenever you want. However, if you've already published your site, you'll need to set 301 redirects to ensure that existing external links to pages in this collection will keep working. Here's how you can set the redirect easily without having to redirect each and every collection page:

• Old path: /old-collection-url/(.*)
• Redirect to path: /new-collection-url/%1

At the moment, you cannot rename collection slugs of Ecommerce collections. This feature is coming in the future. Also note that if you want to Enable Ecommerce on an existing site, at the moment, you cannot have CMS collections and static pages or folder with slugs reserved for Ecommerce such as product and category.

Collection fields

While presets can be a good way to get started quickly with CMS collections, you can also build your collections from scratch, adding or removing fields as needed for the type of content you’re working with. You can also add custom fields to Ecommerce collections.

Collection fields aren't website elements. They're simply fields where data is stored for each collection item, which you’ll be able to reference in your designs.

There are many different field types to choose from when structuring your collection. Each field translates into different kinds of content that you incorporate into the design for your project.

Learn everything about: Collection fields

Edit a collection

Once you’ve created a collection, you can go back and edit the collection structure and settings even after the project has been published.

You can add a new field, edit an existing field, or even remove a field altogether. In each field, you can modify the label and help text. Customizing the help text can make it clear to Collaborators what each field is intended for.

Delete a Collection field

You can only delete fields that aren’t being used in your designs, collection page settings, collection list settings such as filters or conditional visibility.

Reorder the display of CMS collections

Drag and reorder your Collections to keep your most important collections organized and accessible. The reordering made in the Designer will be reflected in the Editor, there's no need to republish your site.

Create collection items

Once the collection is created, you can start creating collection items such as blog posts, products, listings, and so on either in the Designer or the Editor.

Learn more about: collection items

Design with collections

Now that you've created your collections, you can pull content from them and connect them to your elements and design on the canvas.

Learn more about: designing collections