Creating a data model

Pages in Bildy are instances of some data model. So first thing to do before getting anything to show on a Bildy site is creating a data model.

1) Create new data model

You can start creating a data model when you have Content or Data models tab open in Bildy editor. Click on New... > Data model if you have Content tab open or simply click New data model if you have Data models tab open.

2) Define data model name

Define a descriptive name for your data model. In this case we are creating a very simple data model and we'll just call it "Content". As you are typing the name you'll see that the internal name is being generated. The internal name is used in templates, while the actual name is what's visible in Content tab. For now, you may leave the internal name as it is generated.

You can also leave other settings in the data model settings sheet be for now, just click OK to continue to next phase.

3) Add controls

Data model consists of a set of controls. All available controls are listed on the right hand side of the Bildy editor.

Go ahead and click on Textfield, which we'll need to define the name field. A Textfield control appears on the main data model editor area on the left hand side of the screen. Now we want to define a descriptive name for it. You can do that by click on 'Textarea' text on the control. You can see that the field became editable, so type in "Name". You can see that the gray text below the control name also changes, but it is in lowercase. This internal control name is used in templates, just like the Data model name we set up earlier. Leave the control's internal name as "name" for now.

We need another field to display more editable content on the page, so click on Mooeditable on the right hand side where the controls are listed. Name it "Content".

4) Control setup

You can access control settings by clicking the third gray icon from the left on the controls' row. Click on the settings icon for the control we just named "Name". Now you'll see a settings dialog for this text field control. It is never mandatory to access the settings, so you are safe to leave these settings empty if you wish. Try setting the Max length setting to "30" and then put "font-size: 20px;" to the Styles. Then click OK. You might notice that the text field control's input field got bigger. We don't need to setup the other control, so let's skip to the next step...

5) Save

To start using the data model, you'll just need to save it. Click on the Save button in the top left corner of the editor, or you may also click Ctrl-S on Windows/Linux or Command-S on Mac to save.

6) Done

Now we are ready to move to the next step!

Creating a template.