[Xerte-dev] Re: Connectors

[Kemp Johnathan]

 As a way of putting off the day we need to make a decision I can offer the
following, but I don't know what impact any developments regarding the
navigation aspects will have on this because I don't know what how you want
to handle this yet.

I can produce a set of files for each connector page as follows using the
connector menu page as an example below

connectorMenu.rlm
being a single rlm file that will work in XOT or Xerte

connectorMenu.xwd
being an xwd file that works in Xerte and is flagged for xerte only and
uses text fields and Page IDs instead of pageLists

xot_connectorMenu.xwd
being an xwd file that works in XOT using the pageList control and is
flagged to only be used in XOT

At present the use of the pageList control will break the connections set
up in any legacy projects that are already created, unless it can be made
to look up the linkID if the xml data contains data that does not begin
with "PG".

The way the menu connector handles the option to specify a list of pages
has changed so that the Author can select pages using the pageList control
(or enter pageIDs individually in Xerte) so that will break legacy projects
but it will present a consistent approach between the two.

In principle what should happen is when you build the template.xwd file the
xot_connectorMenu.xwd file should get included and the connectorMenu.xwd
file should get ignored. But I need to check with Tom if there are any
implications with this.

I have attached a pageTemplates project example containing the reworked
Menu Connector so you can see how it is panning out. I will need to edit
the code a little to make it agnostic about pageIDs or linkIDs but that
should be fairly simple.

I have used the linkID to locate the page index so don't I can manage with
out a rootIcon.gotoPage(linkID) method. It is easier this way to work with
both pageIDs and linkIDs.

This just leaves how to handle the plainText connector situation in which
the Author cannot see the linkID value.

I had a thought about that. You could add a child element like I have in
the menu Connector and then put an index value in the hyperlink e.g. <a
href="asfunction:_level0.engine.fnTextCon,1" target="_blank"> would point
to the first child element, <a href="asfunction:_level0.engine.fnTextCon,2"
target="_blank"> would point to the second child element. The fnTextCon
function could then look up the linkID from the xml data.

Then for all the connector pages we have the navigation options to resolve.

Kind regards

Johnathan


On 15 November 2012 10:12, Ron Mitchell <ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk> wrote:

> The only additional thing that springs to mind right now is whether there
> can be a check whether the project is a pages/page wizard project and in
> that case the pageList control isn't used and the old manually added pageID
> is used instead. I guess Jonathan is best placed to know whether that would
> work and what would be involved.
>
>
>
> *From:* xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
> xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] *On Behalf Of *Julian Tenney
> *Sent:* 15 November 2012 09:12
> *To:* For Xerte technical developers
> *Subject:* [Xerte-dev] Connectors
>
>
>
> We need to figure out how we are going to deal with the connectors.
>
>
>
> *Summary*
>
> - We want to use the new pageList control in the wizard to allow users to
> create and use linkIDs behind the scenes. Users will simply select the name
> of the page they want to jump to from the pageList control. The pagelist
> control writes the linkID of the selected page to the attribute’s value.
>
> - This means re-working the connector pages to use the linkID rather than
> pageID (I don’t think this is hard / lengthy)
>
> - This brings a big improvement to the connectors in toolkits.
>
> [so far so good
>
>
>
> The same thing would also work with a page templates project in standalone
> xerte. Project’s could still be round-tripped to toolkits and back again.
>
> [so far so good still]
>
>
>
> *Problem*
>
> The problem is with the page wizards. When using the wizard there, there
> is no way of getting a list of pages in the piece, or generating linkIDs
> for them, so this approach won’t work. Now there are many problems, because
> the page wizards share the code with the page templates models.
>
>
>
> *Considerations*
>
> Xerte standalone is pretty much at the end of its life.
>
> Hardly anyone uses page wizards in standalone xerte.
>
>
>
> Before we discuss options, is there anything else to add to this summary?
> Please keep comments short and to the point so that we can get a clear
> sight of the problem and the options we have available.
>
>
>
>
>
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