Reusable Admin Views
Across Multiple Components
Joomla! Component Builder (JCB) empowers developers to define admin views once — and reuse them across multiple components in the same JCB instance. Instead of recreating views, fields, layouts, and logic repeatedly, you can blueprint reusable views that behave like shared templates, keeping your backend UI and logic consistent, DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself), and versionable.
This approach helps streamline large ecosystems where multiple components share the same data structure or UI functionality — such as dashboards, logs, reports, or reusable CRUD interfaces.
What Is a "Reusable Admin View"?
Fields
Filters
Forms (edit view)
List view layout
Permissions
Custom logic
Templates
Language strings
Once defined, it can be linked into multiple components. This way, any improvements or logic changes to the original view can be reflected across all components that include it.
Benefits of Reusing Views
- Centralized updates: fix or improve once, apply everywhere
- Consistent interface and behavior across components
- Faster prototyping for new components
- Modular architecture: break down large systems into small, shared view units
Example Use Case
Imagine you’ve built a component for managing support tickets (com\_support) and another for managing customer assets (com\_assets). Both need a "Logs" admin view showing action history.
With JCB, you can:
✅ Create a reusable admin view called "Action Log"
✅ Define its fields (date, user, action, context), permissions, and layout
✅ Link it into both components
✅ Optionally override certain behavior/context per component if needed
How to Reuse a View
- In Component A:
- Create a new Admin View
- Add fields, layout, filters, and logic as usual
- Mark it as reusable (by naming convention or tagging it)
- In Component B:
- Add a new Admin View
- Select a Existing View (select from existing blueprints)
- This will Reuse the view from Component A
- Customize the link:
- Set alias if needed
- Set permissions, menu entry, or view name
- Apply component-specific layout overrides if required
- Compile Component B — the reused view will be included and scoped to it.
What’s Reused?
- Fields and filters
- Field settings and validation
- Layouts and templates
- Custom code blocks
- Language strings (auto-renamed per component context)
- View permissions and field ACL
Can You Sync Reused Views?
Are There Limitations?
View names must remain unique per component (Joomla requirement)
You cannot use views from a component that hasn’t been imported
Reused views cannot span database tables unless specifically designed to do so
Related Features
Summary
Reusable admin views in JCB help you:
- ✅ Reuse powerful interfaces across components
- ✅ Avoid duplication of effort
- ✅ Maintain UI/logic consistency
- ✅ Scale quickly across projects