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What are composite components or renderings in SXA? (I'm looking for answers describing the inner workings, ideally).

I have read about SXA composite components and SXA composite renderings. From what I can tell, this is not SXA-specific, but rather a type of rendering which uses a datasource containing multiple sub-items. Am I missing something here? From what I can see, they seem to be quite similar to Partial Designs (in having their own layout) but do not have a way to edit them in Sitecore.

Edit: On further examination, I see that the composite components have their own layouts, so probably are specific to SXA.

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    You might want to review chrisvandesteeg.nl/2015/11/03/sitecore-composite-components. I’ve used these on non-SXA projects successfully. They work very well. Verified on 8.2u5.
    – jrap
    Commented Feb 25, 2018 at 2:57
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    I have also used the composite components that @jrap mentions. Although it is worth noting that this is a very different thing to the composites in SXA. The one from Chris Van De Steeg have more in common with a Partial Design in SXA.
    – Richard Seal ♦
    Commented Feb 25, 2018 at 6:30

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In SXA, composite components are ones that get layered together. Think of the Tabs or Accordion components. Each of these require you to add a primary component, then add secondary components. The experience may have improved between versions, but here is an example in SXA 1.6.

Examples: Tabs component.

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Take notice how the Tab component contains Tab Item 1 and Tab Item 2. Then nested in each is some text and an image.

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Behind the scenes the data is stored like this:

enter image description here

Note: Snippet is the new kid on the block (1.6) to build your own composite components

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From the Sitecore Documentation on Composite Renderings:

A composite rendering consists of several renderings. Each instance can have its own layout and it can be designed separately in Experience Editor. When a composite rendering is rendered on the page, it queries each item from its data source and pulls data and layout. This facilitates building very complex layouts, but also involves a more advanced setup.

This is a concept that has been around in various forms for a while. I think Thomas Eldblom came up with the first version of it almost 10 years ago. SXA has refined the implementation and made it much more user-friendly.

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    I've read that very same article as well (I linked to it in the question!). I was hoping for an answer which would shine some light on how these are developed and their inner workings.
    – Matthew Dresser
    Commented Feb 25, 2018 at 14:00
  • So you did. I only saw the first link. I guess I should read more carefully. Perhaps it would also be a good idea to specify that you are looking for implementation details in your question.
    – Ben Golden
    Commented Feb 25, 2018 at 17:57

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