Search

A search interface with faceted filtering. Contains a child listing block for results and typed facets (checkbox, select, date range, toggle) for filtering.

The search example block being edited in Inka

Search with Facets

Filter by

Content Type
Tags

Previewing and Testing Content

Preview content locally by serving the Markdown through the mock API, and check it with the block sanity test — which discovers every block on the served content and verifies it renders across frontends.

Content as Markdown

Author Plone block content as readable Markdown. One loader turns a .md file into block JSON, so the same file is the content the API serves, the deploy ships, and the docs render — with no JSON to hand-edit.

Visual Editing

Templates & Layouts

Templates allow editors to centrally control content and reuse content. They allow a developer to not have to hard code layout decisions and instead use rules to apply user layouts in template content stored separately from the page, or give the user a choice on which layout they want.

Server-rendered frontends

Inka works with any frontend, including ones that have no client-side

Live Preview

To make your site editable with Inka you load hydra.js in your frontend and call initBridge(). This sets up a two-way communication channel that handles authentication, page navigation, and live content updates.

Simple Search

Callout

A labelled admonition box — note, tip, warning, or important — with a rich-text body. Use it for asides, gotchas, and warnings inside a page.

Templates and layouts

A template is a piece of pre-built page structure that someone (often a developer or site admin) has saved separately. When you apply a template to a page, the page gets the template's structure overlaid: some blocks are fixed and can't be edited, some can be edited but not moved, and some are open slots where you fill in your own blocks.

Selecting blocks

The editor has two modes when a block is selected: text mode (you're editing inside the block) and block mode (the whole block is selected as a unit).

Links and media

The link picker, image picker, and upload dialog are part of Inka's chrome — they look the same on every site. What varies by design system is which links and images are click-to-edit in the preview: a site might wire up every link inline, or only a few "primary" links, with everything else editable from the sidebar. Same applies to images.

Editing text

Click into any text in the preview that's marked inline-editable and start typing. There are two kinds of text fields: simple text (like a title) and slate (rich text — the body of a paragraph block, descriptions, etc.).

Containers

A container block holds other blocks inside it — sliders, columns, accordions, grids, generic sections. The blocks inside are called its children. Containers can be nested (a column inside a row inside a section).

Developer Reference

Schema

Pass this object inside the blocks option when calling initBridge() to register this block type with the admin UI. See Custom Blocks for the full setup guide.

{
  "properties": {
    "variation": {
      "title": "Variation"
    },
    "query": {
      "title": "Query",
      "widget": "querystring"
    },
    "listingBodyTemplate": {
      "title": "Results template"
    },
    "showSearchInput": {
      "title": "Show search input",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    "showSortOn": {
      "title": "Show sort on",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    "showTotalResults": {
      "title": "Show total results",
      "type": "boolean"
    },
    "sortOnOptions": {
      "title": "Sort on options",
      "type": "array"
    },
    "facets": {
      "title": "Facets",
      "widget": "object_list",
      "typeField": "type",
      "allowedBlocks": [
        "checkboxFacet",
        "selectFacet",
        "daterangeFacet",
        "toggleFacet"
      ],
      "defaultBlockType": "checkboxFacet"
    },
    "headline": {
      "title": "Headline",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "title": {
      "title": "Title",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "facetsTitle": {
      "title": "Facets title",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "quickAnswerSample": {
      "title": "Sample question",
      "type": "string"
    },
    "quickAnswer": {
      "title": "Quick answer",
      "widget": "blocks_layout",
      "allowedBlocks": [
        "quickAnswer"
      ]
    },
    "listing": {
      "title": "Results Listing",
      "widget": "blocks_layout",
      "description": "Listing block to render search results",
      "allowedBlocks": [
        "listing",
        "default",
        "summary",
        "teaser",
        "image"
      ],
      "maxLength": 1,
      "defaultBlockType": "listing"
    }
  }
}

JSON Block Data

Example JSON as stored in the Plone content API. This is the data structure your component will receive in the block prop.

{
  "@type": "search",
  "headline": "Search with Facets",
  "listingBodyTemplate": "summary",
  "facetsTitle": "Filter by",
  "facets": [
    {
      "@id": "facet-type",
      "type": "checkboxFacet",
      "title": "Content Type",
      "field": {
        "value": "portal_type",
        "label": "Type"
      },
      "multiple": true,
      "hidden": false
    },
    {
      "@id": "facet-subject",
      "type": "checkboxFacet",
      "title": "Tags",
      "field": {
        "value": "Subject",
        "label": "Tags"
      },
      "multiple": true,
      "hidden": false
    }
  ],
  "blocks": {
    "facet-listing": {
      "@type": "listing",
      "variation": "summary",
      "querystring": {
        "query": [
          {
            "i": "path",
            "o": "plone.app.querystring.operation.string.absolutePath",
            "v": "/"
          }
        ],
        "sort_on": "effective",
        "sort_order": "descending"
      }
    }
  },
  "blocks_layout": {
    "listing": [
      "facet-listing"
    ]
  },
  "query": {
    "b_size": "4",
    "query": [
      {
        "i": "path",
        "o": "plone.app.querystring.operation.string.absolutePath",
        "v": "/"
      }
    ],
    "sort_on": "effective",
    "sort_order": "descending"
  },
  "showSearchInput": true,
  "showSortOn": true,
  "showTotalResults": true
}

Rendering

How this block renders in your frontend. Add its handling to your renderer, or — for list-style blocks — register a fetcher and reuse your list rendering.

function SearchBlock({ block, blockId }) {
  const [query, setQuery] = useState('');

  const facets = (block.facets || []).filter(f => !f.hidden);
  const listing = block.blocks_layout?.listing || [];
  const listingId = listing[0];
  const listingBlock = listingId ? (block.blocks?.[listingId]) : null;

  return (
    <div data-block-uid={blockId} className="search-block">
      {block.headline && <h2 data-edit-text="headline">{block.headline}</h2>}
      <input
        type="search"
        placeholder="Search..."
        value={query}
        onChange={e => setQuery(e.target.value)}
      />

      {facets.length > 0 && (
        <div className="facets">
          <h4 data-edit-text="facetsTitle">{block.facetsTitle || 'Filter'}</h4>
          {facets.map(facet => (
            <FacetRenderer key={facet['@id']} facet={facet} />
          ))}
        </div>
      )}

      {listingBlock && (
        <ListingBlock block={listingBlock} blockId={listingId} />
      )}
    </div>
  );
}

function FacetRenderer({ facet }) {
  switch (facet.type) {
    case 'checkboxFacet':
      return <fieldset data-block-uid={facet['@id']}><legend data-edit-text="title">{facet.title}</legend>{/* checkbox options */}</fieldset>;
    case 'selectFacet':
      return <label data-block-uid={facet['@id']}><span data-edit-text="title">{facet.title}</span><select>{/* options */}</select></label>;
    case 'daterangeFacet':
      return <label data-block-uid={facet['@id']}><span data-edit-text="title">{facet.title}</span><input type="date" /> – <input type="date" /></label>;
    case 'toggleFacet':
      return <label data-block-uid={facet['@id']}><input type="checkbox" /> <span data-edit-text="title">{facet.title}</span></label>;
    default:
      return null;
  }
}