What is the use of Parbase component:

Question

I couldn't understand the need for a parbase component in CQ5. From what I read in CQ5 documentation, parbase is a component that can extend from other components. But all the components can extend other components by specifying sling:resourceSuperType property. So what is the need for a parbase component?

Answer 1

As per the Day documentation, "The parbase allows components to inherit attributes from other components"

If you check under "/libs/foundation/components", most of the authorable and draggable components have 'parbase' set as their 'sling:resourceSuperType' so that they can inherit the image and text rendering properties when added to a Paragraph system (Parsys Component).

This is a standard followed by all the Out-Of-the-Box components in CQ5.

While creating your own components, you don't need to add 'parbase' as a supertype, unless your components need to be enabled with drag-drop in a parsys.

AFAIK, the parbase component is never used explicitly, but only facilitates the rendering of a component when added in the Parsys.

Answer 2

Parbase is just a component from which you extend to get some OOTB functionality.

If I can say in technical language, Parbase is a key component as it allows components to inherit attributes from other components, similar to subclasses in object oriented languages such as Java.

For example, when you open the /libs/foundation/components/text node in the CRX Explorer, you see that it has a property named sling:resourceSuperType, which references the parbase component. The parbase here defines tree scripts to render images, titles, and so on, so that all components subclassed from this parbase can use this script.