[Xerte] Re: Implementing routed pages in a pageTemplates / toolkits environment

Wed Oct 19 15:12:08 BST 2011

It's probably a dev list discussion.

Are the pages that you jump to just other version of scenario, or do you want to jump to any type of page?

Engine side functions are no trouble to implement, so don't worry about that, but you can get at the underlying xml from your code too.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp Johnathan
Sent: 19 October 2011 15:00
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Implementing routed pages in a pageTemplates / toolkits environment

Tom has the right idea of the problem I was trying to point out.

If it is preferred that this type of question be posted to the dev list then I have no problem with that. I guess I was thinking of the dev list as related to the languaging and modularisation work. Julian due you have a preference for where this discussion continues?

I think that from Tom's reply he has grasped the issue.

Essentially I need to have
1. A field in the xwd form for a page into which a user can enter a unique identifier.
2. A way of populating the name property of the page icon with the unique identifier entered into the xwd so that I can use the getChildByName method to obtain the page index so that I can navigate to it.

Currently most xwd forms have a name field, but this is used in pageTemplates to provide the Page Title. So I wouldn't use the name field in the xwd, this will also avoid compromising any backward compatibility issues.

I propose adding an optional pageID field to an xwd form and invite the page author to enter a unique value for the page.

The show stopper is that currently there is no setPageName() method for the page icon that would let me populate the page Icon's name property with the value entered into the xwd form. Thus I have no way of using the xwd entered pageID value to derive the index of a page.

In the Page Wizard environment the problem is overcome by not using a property entered in an xwd, but by setting the page Icon's name property manually in the property page for the icon.

In a pageTemplates environment the Page Author does not have access to the page Icon's property page and so cannot set the page name property manually, so an xwd driven solution is needed.

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 19 October 2011 12:57, Tom Reijnders <reijnders at tor.nl<mailto:reijnders at tor.nl>> wrote:
I think that the main issue Jonathan is referring to has nothing to do with Wizards/Page templates, but with the fact that you can't get to the name of an icon (or set it) in templates from the, ehmmm, wizard... (the xwd editor). If we can fix that, Jonathan can make his 'wizards' work in templates. That would be cool.

Jonathan? Did I understand the issue correctly? By the way, I think this discussion is more appropriate on the dev list.

Op 19-10-2011 12:40, Julian Tenney schreef:
I'm not so familiar with the page wizards side of things, but I see what you mean.

>From a templates side of things, would it work if you used the name, and asked people to keep them unique? What you then say is that because wizards don't have a name property, then for the author there's messing about to do between the wizard and the icon properties?

>From my point of view, templates trump wizards as there are many more users of templates.

There is an id generated somewhere, but it's not user friendly if they had to type it in.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp Johnathan
Sent: 19 October 2011 09:05
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Implementing routed pages in a pageTemplates / toolkits environment

 I am currently working on the scenario page that I demonstrated at the recent Xerte Dev and I would like to be able to get this working in a pageTemplates environment, but the way routed pages currently operate will not transfer directly to a pageTemplates environment.

What is required:
A value that the page author can set as a unique identifier for a page. This value will then be entered into the "destination" field of another page so that the second page can send the user to the first page when a condition is met. This value needs to be set from an xwd form.

Solution in Page Wizards:
Use the page icon's "Name" property. ( not ideal as this is not accessible from the xwd form)
When a page's destination field in an xwd form is populated with the name of a page navigation to that page is achieved by
1. use getChildByName to obtain the pages xml
2. obtain the pages index by using .index() method of the xml
3. use gotoPage(page's index) to navigate to the page

(the above is a little simplified but contains the key elements).

This method has a couple of problems

1. In Page Wizards the page's details are set up in the xwd form, but you have to remember to set the page "name" (and "title" for display purposes) in the page Icon's property page. Ideally there would be a way to pass the "name" value from the xwd form to the property page of the icon.

2. In Page Templates there is no way (that I know of) for the page author to access the "name" field of the page icon and hence no way to set up a unique identifier for the page that can later be used to access the pages index in either a framework or the interface.

3. In Page Templates the xwd form's "name" field is used to set the Page Title display. This compromises the use of the name field in the xwd for use as a destination as titles tend to be verbose and contain spaces and may not be unique, whilst an identifier field would ideally be concise and free of spaces. This could be solved by adding an optional identifier field to an xwd form but there still would need to be a way of using this to populate the page Icon's name field.

Is there an approach I can use that I am unfamiliar with or is this an opportunity for a new method to be added to the Xerte engine, e.g. a setPageName() method?

I note that rootIcon has a setPageTitle method but this does not appear to change the underlying page property, i.e.
if I create a page
set the page icon's title property to "eric"
run a script on the page with rootIcon.setPageTitle("fred");

then when I preview the page

The preview displays the page title as "fred",
The page Icon's property page continues to show the title as "eric"

Kind regards

Johnathan

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