Embedding references to entries

[nickdunn]

I'd love the ability to reference entries as content "blocks" within a Redactor field, essentially turning it into a quasi-Matrix field. Some examples of where this would be really useful:

• Dropping in pullquotes into text that are more than a <blockquote>
• Dropping in more complex media reference, curated lists of downloads etc.
• Dropping in content references like a small author bio inline with content

This can in some instance be done with a Matrix field, but more often than not editors don't want to split content across multiple fields and would benefit from the ability to treat other Craft content entries the same way as images or embedded videos.

I'm not sure how this could be implemented. Possible a new plugin "Entry Manager" that works in the same was as the Image Manager by allowing you to select from an existing entry in Craft. It would then be stored as a reference by ID and some structure returned for templating that provides the entry type and entry ID to allow the template to query and fetch whatever fields are necessary for rendering.

[nickdunn]

The closest I can get right now is using the Widget plugin (https://imperavi.com/redactor/plugins/widget/#Demo) with a naming convention (e.g. <div data-entry="123"></div>) and use JavaScript on the template frontend to parse these out and make an AJAX request to fetch data and render something.

[nickdunn]

Or a way to change the behaviour of "Link to an Entry" so that it doesn't automatically convert to a hyperlink on the frontend, but passes the ID for templating.