What is Contentful?

Contentful is an API first content management platform to create, manage and publish content on to any digital channel. It is a modern CMS (Content Management System) where a content model is created independent from any presentation layer. It organizes content into spaces, that allows you to group all the related resources for a project together, this includes content entries, media assets, and settings for localizing content into different languages.

Integrating Draftbit & Contentful

Setup steps with Contentful

If you don't have a Contentful account, create one here.

The initial step to use Contentful Management API is to create a space, a content type, and using that content type, a content model. The content model can then store the data. All of this is required to get access to the REST API URL.

For this example, we are using an Empty Space with our own custom data inserted.

Get your REST API URL:

To perform read and write operations on a Contentful API is done via the Base URL: `

https://api.contentful.com/spaces/your-space-id/environments/your-environment-id

This Base URL requires you to specify a space ID and a default environment to start with. To access these values:

From your Contentful dashboard menu, click Settings > API Keys.
In the API Keys web page from the top right corner, click the button Add API Key.
Then copy and save Space ID as well as the default environment which is called master.

Get Authentication Token:

The Contentful Management API allows read and write operations to the Base URL only if there is an Authorization header is passed with the value of Bearer <cma_token>. To fetch the <cma_token>:

From your Contentful dashboard menu, click Settings > API Keys.
Go to the tab Content management tokens.
Click Generate personal token.
Enter a token name and click Generate.
Save the <cma_token> generated here because you won't be able to access it later. This going to be used in the next section.

Setup steps in Draftbit

Save Contentful cma-token

To access the API in the Draftbit app, you need the pass the <cma_token> as the global variable in the form of an Authorization header.

Open the Variables panel from the left menu bar and navigate to App Variables
Enter a name to access the token and the value for it. For example, Authorization_Header.
The token value requires you to enter a Bearer token. The syntax is Bearer <cma_token>.
In place of paste your own <cma_token> (from the previous section) and then click Add.
Click Save.

Add Contentful Base URL in Draftbit

Open the Data modal from the left menu bar
From the Connect a service menu, click on Contentful.
In Step 1: Enter a name for your REST API. Then, paste your Base URL (from the previous section) into the Dev URL or Prod URL field.
In Step 2: Under Key add Authorization. Under Value, select the global variable (from the previous section) to add the actual value of the API key.
Click Save.

📘
Dev & Prod URLS
The Base URL parameter has been updated to give you the ability to set separate base URLs for Development and Production. When you publish your app, you can set which base URL to use, Dev or Prod. Read more about Environments

Using Contentful with Draftbit

GET request to fetch all items

In this section, let's populate a Fetch component with all the data from a simple Contentful service and then display the data fetched in a List component.

For reference, here is a how the Components tree looks like for this screen:

The next step is to create an endpoint. Let's try fetching the data using a GET HTTP request. Open the API & Cloud Services modal, select the Contentful service, and then:

Click Add endpoint.
In Step 1: enter the name for the endpoint. Make sure the Method select is GET.
Set the Role to Get Many as the endpoint is fetching a list of items. Set the Object Type to groceries for this example.
In the Path section add /entries
In Step 4: click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to verify the response coming from the Contentful service.
Click Save.

On app screen:

Select the Fetch component in the Components tree and go to the Data tab from Properties Panel.
For Service, select the name of the Contentful service.
For Endpoint, select the endpoint you want to fetch the data from.
Select the List component in the Components tree and go to the Data tab from Properties Panel.
In Data, select items from the dropdown menu.
Then, select the Text component in the Components tree and then go to the Data tab from the Properties Panel.
Add a {{varName}} value (inside the curly braces) to represent a data field from the Contentful service. For example, we add {{title}} to represent the column name from the Contentful service.
Under Variables, you will see the variable name defined in the previous step. From the dropdown menu, select the appropriate field that represents the data field. For example, to display the title of the item, select fields.title.en-US.

GET request to fetch a single item

In this section, let's populate a Fetch component with a single record from the Contentful service. For reference, here is a how the Components tree looks like for this screen:

Also, from the List screen, we are sending the id of each list item as a navigation parameter when an action is triggered on the Touchable/Button component. This action will let you navigate to the screen where a single record is fetched and its details are shown.

Data is fetched using a GET HTTP request. Open the API & Cloud Services modal from the top menu, select the Contentful service, and then:

Click Add endpoint.
In Step 1: enter a name for the endpoint.
Set the Role to Get One as the endpoint is fetching a single item. Set the Object Type to groceries for this example.
In Step 2: add the entries/{{id}} variable. Then, add a Test value for the {{id}}.
In Step 4: click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to verify the response coming from the Contentful service.
Click Save.

On app screen:

Select the Fetch component in the Components tree and go to the Data tab from Properties Panel.
For Service, select the name of the Contentful Service.
For endpoint, select the endpoint you want to fetch the data from.
Set the value for the id in the Configuration > URL Structure section to Navigation > id.
Then, select the Text component in the Components tree and then go to the Data tab from the Properties Panel.
Add a {{varName}} value (inside the curly braces) to represent a data field from the Contentful service. For example, we add {{title}} to represent the column name from the Contentful service.
Under Variables, you will see the variable name defined in the previous step. From the dropdown menu, select the appropriate field that represents the data field. For example, to display the title of the item, select fields.title.en-US.

POST request to submit a new item

Submitting new Data from the Draftbit app to a REST API requires the request to be sent using HTTP POST method.

Your component needs to have:

accepts user input
has a Data Source prop

You can use any component that contains a Data Source prop to log user input and submit data. This list of components currently includes:

Once you have the necessary component(s) on your screen, you'll need to create a new endpoint in your Contentful service:

Click Add endpoint.
In Step 1: enter a name for the endpoint and select the Method to POST.
Set the Role to Create as the endpoint is used to create a new record. Set the Object Type to groceries for this example.
In Step 2: add /entries
In Step 3: add a valid Body structure to submit a POST request. Add one or many {{variable}} for test values. Below is a general breakdown of what the request will look like. You're able to add multiple fields to a request, just make sure you include a comma after each field,:

{
  "fields": {
    "title": {
      "en-US": {{textInputValue}}
    }
  }
}

Click Body Preview to validate the structure of the Body in the request.
In Step 4: add a new header called X-Contentful-Content-Type with its value as content type created when creating the Contentful space. For example, the content type for this API is called title. Go to the Headers tab to add this header type.
In Step 5: click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to verify the response coming from the Contentful service.
Click Save.

Using a Touchable/Button component, you can trigger the action API Request to submit the data to the endpoint.

The textInputValue passed in the above example is the value of the Data Source property on the Text Input component:

PUT request to Update an item

The PUT request is used to update the single entry in the Contentful CMS. It accepts similar input components as mentioned in the POST request and the API Request is triggered using a Touchable/Button component.

Your component needs to have:

accepts user input
has a Data Source prop to update data using an API Request

You can use any component that contains a Data Source prop to log user input and submit data. This list of components currently includes:

Once you have the necessary component(s) on your screen, you'll need to create a new endpoint in your Contentful service:

Click Add endpoint.
In Step 1: enter a name for the endpoint and select the Method to PUT.
Set the Role to Update. Set the Object Type to groceries for this example.
In Step 2: add the entries/{{id}} variable. Then, add a Test value for the {{id}}.
In Step 3: add a valid Body structure to submit a PUT request. Add one or many {{variable}} for test values. Below is a general breakdown of what the request will look like. You're able to add multiple fields to a request, just make sure you include a comma after each field,:

{
  "fields": {
    "title": {
      "en-US": {{textInputValue}}
    }
  }
}

Click Body Preview to validate the structure of the Body in the request.
In Step 4: add a new header called X-Contentful-Version with its value as the last version of the entry you are updating. For example, the content type for this API is called 3. Go to the Headers tab to add this header type.
In Step 5: click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to verify the response coming from the Contentful service.
Click Save.

Using a Touchable/Button component, you can trigger the action API Request to update the data to the endpoint.

DELETE request to Delete data

The DELETE request is sent with an item's id to remove that particular record from the table.

For example, once you have the necessary component(s) on your screen, you'll need to create a new endpoint in your Contentful service. In the new endpoint you'll need to:

Click Add endpoint.
In Step 1: enter a name for the endpoint and select the Method to DELETE.
Set the Role to Delete. Set the Object Type to groceries for this example.
In Step 2: add entries/{{id}} where id is provided as a test value of an existing record when testing the endpoint. In your app, you will have to pass the id of a single record, for example, as a navigation parameter.
In Step 4: add a new header called X-Contentful-Version with its value as the last version of the entry you are updating. For example, the content type for this API is called 3. Go to the Headers tab to add this header type.
In Step 5: click the Test button next to the Endpoint input to verify the response coming from the Contentful service.
Click Save.

Using a Touchable/Button component, you can trigger the action API Request to submit the data to the endpoint.

What is Contentful?

Integrating Draftbit & Contentful

Setup steps with Contentful

Setup steps in Draftbit

Save Contentful cma-token

Add Contentful Base URL in Draftbit

📘Dev & Prod URLS

Using Contentful with Draftbit

GET request to fetch all items

GET request to fetch a single item

POST request to submit a new item

PUT request to Update an item

DELETE request to Delete data

📘
Dev & Prod URLS