Frequently Asked Questions
Arboretum 101
What is Arboretum?
Arboretum is the Sitemap for Contentful. Arboretum helps you manage and deliver bigger (and smaller) websites built with Contentful quickly and easily by bringing a familiar sitemap model into your workspace.
How does Arboretum work?
Arboretum is a Software-as-a-Service that connects to the Contentful APIs and seamlessly extends your Contentful environment capabilities. It's accessible as a Contentful App for Content Creators and as a REST API for Developers.
Can I start using Arboretum today?
Arboretum is currently available through an Early Access Program (EAP). Get in touch with us.
Who's behind Arboretum?
Arboretum is an independent Contentful extension built by the awesome team of digital natives at Bright IT. Visit www.bright.global to learn more about them.
For Developers
How does Arboretum work?
Arboretum uses the Contentful APIs to fetch all your page-related content entries, build a sitemap structure out of them, and persist it in a database for efficient querying. The database then acts as a smart-cache or read-model.
Which programming languages are supported?
Arboretum exposes a REST API, so virtually any programming language capable of making HTTP calls is supported - including JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, Scala, C#, F#, Python, Go, Ruby, and PHP to name a few.
Does Arboretum work with React, Vue.js, or Angular? Can I include Next.js, Gatsby, or Vite? Does it work with SSR, SSG, or DSG?
Arboretum cares about the sitemap and the sitemap only – and does not influence nor interfere with how you model or deliver your page content. Because of that, Arboretum is 100% agnostic when it comes to your frontend framework and similar technology choices you may have in mind. Putting it in other words - all of them are likely supported.
How do I install and run Arboretum?
Arboretum is a Software-as-a-Service so you don't need to download and run anything on your machine nor worry about deployments and infrastructure. All you have to do is install the Arboretum App in your Contentful environment and start using the Arboretum API (and UI). It's that simple!
What are the requirements from a content modeling perspective?
Arboretum assumes very little about your content model, however you do need to connect your page-related content model with Arboretum. The following are requirements you need to meet to use Arboretum with your Contentful project: 1. Your locale configuration is set to fallback to one default language. 2. Your content model must include a model of a page (something that has a slug and multi-reference field of its children), a redirect (to support alternative paths for sitemap nodes), settings (to mark one of the pages as a homepage).
Can I copy my entire environment together with the Arboretum app?
If your environment is cloned from a master on which Arboretum is already installed, the application needs to be uninstalled and installed again. Arboretum is only properly set up during the process of application installation, not when the environment is cloned.
What about my data storage?
Arboretum doesn’t own the data, or even store it (except for caching). It only reinterprets the data for efficient querying. Installing Arboretum does not make any changes to your space and environment. The requirement is to include the appropriate content types in the content model structure, so the modification that is carried out in the installation stage is the creation of the aforementioned content types.
For Content Creators
How can I add my page to the sitemap?
The Arboretum sitemap is generated based on a specific Page type that comes with the application installation (not applicable to the advanced installation). The content needs to be nested within this page type to be properly displayed inside the page tree. This applies to both parent and child pages. Additionally all pages need to be added to the Homepage or any of its children to be included into the sitemap.
Does Arboretum support Compose?
Yes! Arboretum is built with Compose in mind. It will work with Compose but also works just fine without it.
Is my non-Compose Contentful Space supported?
Yes! You don't need to be a Compose customer to use Arboretum and you won't miss out on any of Arboretum's key features.