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Restruct FAQ Module

Maintained by Restruct. If this module saves you time, you can support ongoing maintenance.

A Silverstripe module for managing and displaying frequently asked questions (FAQs).

Features

• FAQ Categories: Organize FAQs into categories
• FAQs: Manage questions and answers with HTML formatting
• FAQ Pages: Display selected categories and their FAQs on a page
• Sort Order: Automatic and manual sorting of FAQs within categories
• CMS Management: Dedicated ModelAdmin section for managing FAQs and categories
• View counting: Counts how often each question is opened on the site, once per visitor session

Requirements

composer.json is the source of truth. Silverstripe 5 is supported until its end of life in April 2027; Silverstripe 4 is not supported.

Dependencies: silverstripe/cms and symbiote/silverstripe-gridfieldextensions (^4 on Silverstripe 5, ^5 on Silverstripe 6), for the drag-sortable GridFields.

Silverstripe 6: TinyMCE is a separate module there and silverstripe/recipe-cms does not include it. Without silverstripe/htmleditor-tinymce installed, the Answer field is not a rich-text editor. Most Silverstripe 6 projects already require it; the module lists it under suggest.

Installation

Then build the database:

The package is restruct/silverstripe-faq (singular); the repository is silverstripe-faqs.

FAQPage extends your project's Page class and FAQPageController extends PageController, as with any page-type module, so the project must define both (every standard Silverstripe project does).

Usage

In the CMS

1. Managing FAQs: Go to "FAQs" in the main menu

   • First create categories under the "Faq Category" tab
   • Then add FAQs under the "Faq Question" tab
   • Assign each FAQ to a category (a question can be in several)
   • Within a category, drag the questions into the order they should appear on the page
2. Creating an FAQ Page:
   • Create a new page of type "FAQ Page"
   • Go to the "FAQ Categories" tab
   • Select which categories you want to display on this page
   • Drag the categories into the order they should appear on the page

Ordering

• Categories on a page follow the order dragged on the page's "FAQ Categories" tab.
• Questions within a category follow the order dragged in that category's "FAQ Questions" tab. Where nothing has been dragged yet, the questions' own sort order (the order they were created in) decides.
• $AllFaqs has no single category to take an order from, so it uses the questions' own sort order.

Template Customization

The default FAQ page template (templates/Restruct/FAQ/Pages/Layout/FAQPage.ss) uses a custom accordion implementation with vanilla JavaScript and CSS - no external dependencies required.

Client Assets

The module includes the following client-side files:

1. faq-accordion.js: Core accordion functionality

   • Handles expand/collapse behavior
   • Dispatches faq:opened custom events for tracking
   • Keyboard navigation support

2. faq-view-tracker.js: Analytics tracking

   • Tracks when users open FAQ items
   • CSRF token protection
   • Session-based deduplication
3. faq-accordion.css: Accordion styling
   • Clean, modern design
   • Smooth transitions
   • Mobile responsive

FAQPageController::init() requires all three on every FAQ page.

Customizing the Template

You can customize the FAQ display in several ways:

1. Override the template: Create your own template in your theme directory:

2. Override the styles: Override CSS variables or classes in your theme's stylesheet

3. Extend functionality: Listen to the faq:opened custom event to add your own behavior:

Template Structure

The template provides two main methods:

• $CategoriesWithFaqs: Returns categories with their associated FAQs grouped together. Each item has $Category (the FaqCategory) and $Faqs (its questions); categories without questions are left out.
• $AllFaqs: Returns all FAQs for the selected categories (ungrouped), each question once even when it is in several of them. It is null when the page has no categories selected.

Refer to the default template for implementation examples.

To keep the accordion and view counting working in your own template, render each question's toggle as the default template does. The scripts bind to nothing else:

• the class faq-toggle on the button (the accordion binds only to .faq-toggle);
• aria-controls holding the id of the answer element, which starts hidden (the accordion finds the answer only through it; the view is counted only when an answer opens);
• data-faq-id="{$ID}" and data-security-token="{$ViewToken}" on the button (sent with the view-count request);
• aria-expanded="false" on the button is recommended for accessibility. The script does not need it: it treats a missing value as collapsed, so the first click still opens the answer.

A toggle without the faq-toggle class or a matching aria-controls target fails silently: the answer does not open, there is no console error and ViewCount stays 0. A toggle missing either data-* attribute still opens, but the tracker logs FAQ tracking: Missing FAQ ID or security token to the console and counts nothing.

View counting

faq-view-tracker.js posts to faq-api/incrementView (routed to FaqApiController in _config/routes.yml) when a question is opened. The endpoint accepts only POST with a valid SecurityID token, counts a question at most once per session, and answers JSON:

The count is shown in the "FAQs" admin list (ViewCount) and is not editable in the CMS.

The script posts to the absolute path /faq-api/incrementView, so view counting assumes the site runs at the domain root.

Configuration

All options are standard Silverstripe private static config, set in YAML:

The FAQs admin removes the export, print and import buttons from both of its GridFields.

Running the tests

The module cannot be tested on its own: it needs a host Silverstripe project with a Page and PageController. Require it there through a Composer path repository with symlink: true - /tests is export-ignore, so a dist or mirrored install contains no tests - and add its test namespace to the host's autoload-dev:

Then:

CI runs the same suite against Silverstripe 5 and 6 on every push; see .github/workflows/ci.yml.

Licence

MIT, see CHANGELOG.md.