Include pages should have MVC metadata

[jhorsman]

In DXA the tridion items like component templates and page templates are explicitly wired to MVC metadata like view and region. There is no such explicit configuration for include pages.

Include pages like headers and footers are wired to a region name and view by the page name on the page item in the Content Manager. The page name will be used as the region name and qualified view name. I.e. an include page with name "My-module:Header" will put on the page as region "My-module:Header" and should be rendered with the Header view of the My-module mode. (should because at the moment in DXA 1.3 JAVA include page views are always loaded from the core module).

I see two solutions

• use a page template for each header; I.e. the _system/includes/header include page in the example DXA content should not use the "Include Page" template, but a "Header Include Page" template. This template can then have the full MVC metadata.
• set MVC metedata on a page metadata schema for the include page. This does not feel like the perfect solution though because this is mixing module configuration (MVC metadata) and pages.

[rpannekoek]

Assuming that Issue #34 is fixed, what do you see as concrete problem with the current implementation? The idea is that Include Pages will always be modelled as top-level Regions. We are getting the Region name and (qualified) Region View name from the Page title. What else would be needed?

[jhorsman]

There are a few concrete problems

• The page name is directly linked to the region name; That is not what the page name is intended for. Also a user like a site editor cannot change the page title without having unexpected changes in the page.
• For page templates and component templates the MVC metadata is explicit in template metadata. The behaviour of the include page name is completely different. And not intuitive, it took me quite a while to figure out that the page name plays a role in assigning the region and view.
• Because explicit MVC metadata is missing I cannot assign a non-standard controller to the region, and at the moment we cannot use custom region views.

[rpannekoek]

TSI-1494 (internal issue ID for tracking purposes)