dotCMS / dotCMS/core

Page API: Content is rendered outside container when Template is built with HTML Tables

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OKR : Technical User Experience Priority : 4 Low Team : Scout Type : Defect
Dominant language
Java
Stars
970
Forks
486
Avg merge
3d 33m
Merged PRs (30d)
170

Description

Parent Issue

TBD

Problem Statement
For a little bit of context.

We currently want to support Email Creation and Email Editing on UVE. Emails accept HTML to display content but they use HTML Tables instead of div and CSS to ensure cross compatibility across all the email clients that exist and also provide a good and solid layout to display the data.

Issue

Currently if you build a template using this constrains to build Emails, the content will render outside the container and will add an empty contentlet inside the container, creating a visual bug, that every time you hover the content you added, an empty container will be wrapped around with the UVE tools.

There's a workaround that fixes the issue and it is to replace the table and table related tags (tbody, tr, etc) to div on edit mode.

#if($EDIT_MODE)
<div>
#end

More context in this thread

Steps to Reproduce

The steps to reproduce are basically to build a template but instead of divs, use HTML table syntax and then create a page that uses that template.

I can provide an starter that has a template and a page create with it.
Please contact me if you prefer to start by checking the starter.

Template example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" lang="en">
<head>
    <title></title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"><!--[if mso]><xml><o:OfficeDocumentSettings><o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch><o:AllowPNG/></o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]-->
    <style>
        * {
            box-sizing: border-box;
        }
        body {
            margin: 0;
            padding: 0;
        }
        a[x-apple-data-detectors] {
            color: inherit !important;
            text-decoration: inherit !important;
        }
        #MessageViewBody a {
            color: inherit;
            text-decoration: none;
        }
        p {
            line-height: inherit
        }
        .desktop_hide,
        .desktop_hide table {
            mso-hide: all;
            display: none;
            max-height: 0px;
            overflow: hidden;
        }
        .image_block img+div {
            display: none;
        }
        sup,
        sub {
            font-size: 75%;
            line-height: 0;
        }
        @media (max-width:700px) {
            .desktop_hide table.icons-outer {
                display: inline-table !important;
            }
            .desktop_hide table.icons-inner,
            .social_block.desktop_hide .social-table {
                display: inline-block !important;
            }
            .icons-inner {
                text-align: center;
            }
            .icons-inner td {
                margin: 0 auto;
            }
            .image_block div.fullWidth {
                max-width: 100% !important;
            }
            .mobile_hide {
                display: none;
            }
            .row-content {
                width: 100% !important;
            }
            .stack .column {
                width: 100%;
                display: block;
            }
            .mobile_hide {
                min-height: 0;
                max-height: 0;
                max-width: 0;
                overflow: hidden;
                font-size: 0px;
            }
            .desktop_hide,
            .desktop_hide table {
                display: table !important;
                max-height: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style><!--[if mso ]><style>sup, sub { font-size: 100% !important; } sup { mso-text-raise:10% } sub { mso-text-raise:-10% }</style> <![endif]-->
</head>
<body class="body" style="background-color: #ffffff; margin: 0; padding: 0; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; text-size-adjust: none;">
<table class="nl-container" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="mso-table-lspace: 0pt; mso-table-rspace: 0pt; background-color: #ffffff;">
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>
            ##Main column
            #set ($mainColumn = $dotThemeLayout.body)

            #########################################
            ## ADDING THE ROWS FOR THE MAIN COLUMN ##
            #########################################
            #if ($mainColumn.rows)
                #set($rowCount = 0)
                #foreach($row in $mainColumn.rows)
                    #set($rowCount = $rowCount + 1)
                    ##Every row will have a number of columns
                    #foreach($column in $row.columns)
                        #if($velocityCount == 1)
                            <table class="row row-$!{rowCount}" align="center" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="mso-table-lspace: 0pt; mso-table-rspace: 0pt; background-color: #b3dccc;">
                                <tbody>
                                    <tr>
                                        <td>
                        #end
                                    <table class="row-content stack" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="mso-table-lspace: 0pt; mso-table-rspace: 0pt; color: #000000; width: 680px; margin: 0 auto;" width="680">
                                        <tbody>
                                            <tr>
                                                $render.eval($column.draw())
                                            </tr>
                                        </tbody>
                                    </table>
                        #if($velocityCount == $row.columns.size())
                                        </td><!-- /row -->
                                    </tr><!-- /container -->
                                </tbody><!-- /section -->
                            </table>
                        #end
                    #end
                #end
            #end
                </td>
            </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Acceptance Criteria
  • We should be able to build templates using table and table related tags
  • Content should render inside their proper HTML container
dotCMS Version

trunk_latest

Proposed Objective

User Experience

Proposed Priority

Priority 4 - Low

External Links... Slack Conversations, Support Tickets, Figma Designs, etc.

More context in this thread

Assumptions & Initiation Needs
  • You understand how dotCMS processes the VTL files
  • You understand the VTL render engine
  • You understand the Page API implications
Quality Assurance Notes & Workarounds

Change all table and table related tags as tr, td, tbody to div on EDIT_MODE

#if($EDIT_MODE)
<div>
#end
Sub-Tasks & Estimates

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the Page API and VTL render engine, then reproduce the issue using the table-based template and page described in the report. Trace how table, tbody, tr, and td elements are processed in edit mode and identify why an empty contentlet is created outside the container. Done means table-based templates render content inside the proper container without the extra editable wrapper.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
html
Domain
api, backend-api-design, web-dev
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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