I've scan the forums and read this page http://doc.silverstripe.org/built-in-page-controls about 20 times ... but can't find an answer to my question.

In the template, how could I include a test for whether the current page in the control data feed has $Content from the CMS?

I've tried if <% if Content %> but it doesn't ever evaluate to true.

Have also tried a function in the page class like

function checkContent() {
    return ($this->Content);
  }

and <% if checkContent %> in the template but no luck.

Does anyone know a way I could test for this?

are you looking for content with text on it?

how about?

function checkContent() {
   return (!empty(trim(strip_tags($this->Content)))); 
}

and be sure to check your function is being called with a Debug::show()! and then you can debug the results of the function too!

Thanks for the quick response.

Unfortunately that code doesn't get past the dev/build stage:
"Fatal error: Can't use function return value in write context in /public_html/dev/mysite/code/Resource.php on line 46"

yeah - I've seen that error before - it will be fine if you split the lines up...

$s = strip_tags($this->Content);
$s = trim($s);
$b = !empty($s);
return $b; 

Thanks, that's worked. Making progress!! :-)

nice, I just went to check the error and it is the php empty function - according to the docs it ONLY takes a variable and cannot take a return value from a function. I wonder why it can identify a value as empty/not empty but is unable to take a return value and do the same...