plone.volto configures Plone to work with Volto, the new default frontend for Plone 6.
Install plone.volto by adding it to your buildout:
[buildout]
...
[instance]
...
eggs =
plone.volto
...
plone.volto currently works for both Plone 5.2 and Plone 6 (pre-alpha and alpha). It support Python 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9.
Though, Volto requires specific versions of plone.volto and plone.restapi:
| plone.volto | plone.restapi | Reason |
| 3.1.x | 8.13.0 and above | Requires new JSONSummarySerializerMetadata serializer added in plone.restapi 8.13.0 |
| 2.x (kitconcept.volto) | 7.0.0 and above | New image scales |
| 1.x (kitconcept.volto) | 6.0.0 and below | New transforms and features |
plone.restapi 7.x.x is included in Plone 5.2.4 (and later).
You can still use 2.x in p.restapi 7.0.0 based installations but the transforms included won't work.
Volto only supports the latest plone.restapi branch, therefore it is recommended to always use the latest version in your Volto projects.
Architectural Diagram of Plone 6:
Frontend
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ Volto │
│ │
└────────┬────────────┬────────┘
│ ▲
│ HTTP │
Backend ▼ │
┌────────┴────────────┴────────┐
│┌────────────────────────────┐│
││ plone.restapi ││
│└────────────────────────────┘│
│┌────────────────────────────┐│
││ plone.volto ││
│└────────────────────────────┘│
│┌────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐│
││ Plone Core │ │ Add-Ons ││
│└────────────┘ └─────────────┘│
└──────────────────────────────┘
plone.volto provides the following features:
plone.volto enables the new Volto Blocks editor on Document, Language Root Folder and Site Root.
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.
plone.volto supports multilingual websites. Install PAM before installing this package and demo homepages will be created in each enabled language. Currently only support for EN/DE.
plone.volto contains a hack to make the Plone site Volto blocks-enabled with some demo content. You can take only the hack to enable the blocks on your site.
You can see it in action in the Volto demo: https://6.demo.plone.org
Install the provided profile to install it by default:
plone.volto:default-homepage
e.g. in your GS metadata.xml along with your other dependencies:
<metadata> <version>1000</version> <dependencies> <dependency>plone.volto:default-homepage</dependency> </dependencies> </metadata>
NOTE: The default block for creating the default content in the root (or
corresponding Language Root Folders) is "draftJS" text block. plone.volto provides a
profile if you want to create Slate blocks: you need to use the default-homepage-slate
profile.
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.
A quick helper for enable CORS for development config is also provided in the
plone.volto module. So 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.
p.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. Specially if
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.
There are some problems of serialization on special characters derivated from how the
current shape of the Plone's default Dexterity subjects field that has 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.
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 userful for listings (e.g. listing block customizations) and teaser elements (e.g. teaser blocks such as [volto-blocks-grid](https://github.com/kitconcept/volto-blocks-grid)).
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.
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 (e.g. "/profiles/default/types/MyContentType.xml"):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<object i18n:domain="fzj.internet" 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>
The headtitle makes content types provide a headtitle field that can be used by Volto in teasers and alikes.
The "volto.head_title" 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="fzj.internet" meta_type="Dexterity FTI" name="MyContentType"
xmlns:i18n="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/i18n">
...
<!-- Enabled behaviors -->
<property name="behaviors" purge="false">
...
<element value="volto.head_title" />
</property>
...
</object>
This package introduces new Plone image scales in Plone and redefines a couple of existing ones. These are know to work well with Volto layout and grid system:
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.
The code of plone.volto has been under active development and is used in production since 2018. First as kitconcept.voltodemo (deprecated since March, 5th 2020), then as kitconcept.volto. In September 2021 kitconcept.volto has been renamed to plone.volto and has been contributed to the Plone core as part of PLIP #2703.