Can you explain the benefits of so much granularity of data?

Natetronn

last month

17

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  Jarrod

  Payload Team

  last month

  You can see here how we use a serialize function to consume the rich text and output it. The reason we use rich text is because it allows us to do things like, embed documents and other custom elements directly into the rich text editor.

  
  
  

  In the example, ignore the customRenderers for now and just look at the serialize function, it calls itself recursively to loop over all nodes in the json tree.

  
  
  https://github.com/payloadcms/website/blob/main/src/components/RichText/index.tsx
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  Natetronn

  last month

  @Jarrod thanks for sharing! Okay, I see what you're doing here:

  https://github.com/payloadcms/website/blob/main/src/components/RichText/Serialize/index.tsx
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  Kyr

  last month

  The granularity is because not all mediums that might consume the content are websites.

  
  
  

  Content modelling in headless for true omnichannel delivery needs a completely different approach and mental model.

  
  
  

  For example, voice assistants, printers, meta verse, etc. have no use for html.

  
  
  

  Native app UIs can use the RichText json to natively render the content rather than relying on buggy web views, etc.

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  noheadphones

  last month

  That and it allows you to actually process the data better if you need to, rather than have to try and read long strings of HTML (or alternatives)

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  klauss

  last month

  I love the granularity

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  Natetronn

  last month

  Ah okay, makes sense.

  
  

  
  

  Thanks for sharing everyone 😀

  
  

  
  

  @Jarrod @Kyr @noheadphones @klauss is it possible to have granularity for the times one needs it or something more simple for those times when one doesn't need it? For example, say I just want to get back a few fields with their key being the name of the field (that I've assigned to it) and the value being the value of the field and nothing more. Is that possible with Payload?

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  noheadphones

  last month

  Sounds like youre describing graphql?

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  Kyr

  last month

  Yes... just make a field of a different type. text, number, etc.

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  Natetronn

  last month

  Is the granularity more of a RichText specific thing?

  
  

  
  

  Possibly, but even that seems like an extra layer of complexity in my mind.

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  Kyr

  last month

  It is. The richText field splits all the elements into JSON ... most good headless CMS do this in one way or another.

  
  
  

  If you need what I would call "structured content" (i.e. plain data rather than rich text) then just use normal fields.

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  Natetronn

  last month

  Ah okay, maybe that's where the disconnect was coming from. Structured content, yes, that's more of what I was looking for.

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  Kyr

  last month

  Each field you define on your collection of global will return as

  { fieldName: fieldValue }

  ... i.e. a normal

  'text'

  field might be

  { title: 'My awesome title' }
  
  

  The richText field type is just the value as a JSON object that describes the rich text data in a way that is easier to programmatically process then HTML is.

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  Natetronn

  last month

  Great, makes more sense now. Appreciate everyone's help!