It would be nice, if it somehow could inherit the relationships of the database to the config, but this is a nice-to-have (but a very nice one ^^).
------- My approach and stuff I found out -------
I'm writing this in that form, so you can follow the thoughts of a newbie in Xataface. Maybe it helps to develop or enhance tutorials for Xataface users.
After playing a bit with Xataface and its instantly generated back-end I thought, "Ok, back-end: nice, but how to make the front-end for the user?"
It started with the small question how to add a new page, with no direct link to a table. That's because I need very customized composition of various data of the DB.
One short attempt was to create a table in the conf.ini file and somehow to override the functionality by a delegate class, to create a very own content. But it failed because of the Xataface structure, because somewhere deep within it wants to query the table which doesn't exist ...
One way is using actions. I added an action and it worked, but there was no button to this site/this action. And because it's an "stand-alone" action - unlike edit, list or delete - it must be at the level of the Navigation Menu. I found the solution using the Dataface_Application_Menu.html to create a custom menu. But I don't like it, because it's separated from the NavMenu and has by default no style. Furthermore I want to use my custom pages in combination with the NavMenu, so they have to be together.
So the search for adding elements to the NavMenu began. Somewhere I read to add a action to the NavMenu you have to override the Dataface_NavMenu.html template. But I thought "Smarty templates? Then I must find the place where the vars/context are assigned to the template and found NavMenu.php. I tried to add values to $_tables, but nothing changed. I added an echo to look if it is even called, but nothing was shown. I placed an exit on the beginning of each function and the NavMenu was still showed. I deleted the half of the file so it should produce an error, but it didn't happen.
I even called the Dataface_NavMenu.html template directly with df_display() in my action, with the array("asdf" => "asdf", "fdsa" => "fdsa") as context and still the normal NavMenu with all tables showed up.
Very strange ...
So I traced the df_display() over the dataface-public-api.php to the function display() in SkinTool.php. I wanted to know what there the $context really contains and printed it. But there wasn't the tables listed ... But I saw also the $ENV in the file which fits the {foreach from=$ENV.APPLICATION._tables item=label key=table} stuff. So I printed $this->ENV and there were the tables listed, along with tons of other stuff. ^^
I added a value to $this->ENV['APPLICATION']['_tables'] and jackpot! The NavMenu had one entry more.
But how to add my action now? In the SkinTool.php for sure not. Then a brilliant idea came up - write it in the config file! It will be sure read into the $ENV stuff, I thought.
- Code: Select all
[_actions_add_to_navmenu]
actionname = "Shown Name in the NavMenu"
After checking, I was right. So I can access it in the Template, only with a new entry in the config file.
I copied the foreach loop and modified it and it worked, but there was one little problem:
The first table was always marked as selected, because of the default table setting. So I had to change the if-part
{if $ENV.table==$table}class="selected"{/if}>
Oh, while writing this I found a better (and cleaner) method to solve this.
- Code: Select all
pseudo code:
{action_selected = false} -- in smarty assign new var
foreach(_actions_add_to_navmenu )
{if $ENV.action == run_action} class="selected" {action_selected = true} {/if} -- if action in the ENV (= current action) == current shown action -> show as selected and save it to the var
{if !$action_selected && $ENV.table == $table} -- when action is shown selected, don't show any table as selected
Hurray, it works!
Drawbacks:
-- The actions are always listed before the tables.
-- The automatism when the horizontal menu is shown is only affected by the count of the tables, but via [_prefs] horizontal_tables_menu = 0 or 1 this shouldn't be a too big problem.
- Code: Select all
see Application.php line 364:
if ( count($this->_tables) <= 10 ){
$this->prefs['horizontal_tables_menu'] = 1;
}
What do you think about my solution? Is it clean enough? Could I improve some parts?
------- Installing Instructions -------
Put the modified Dataface_NavMenu.html Template into yourapplicationpath/templates (see the whole file at the end of this post)
That overrides the template of Xataface.
Add to conf.ini
- Code: Select all
[_actions_add_to_navmenu]
actionname1 = "Shown Name1 in the NavMenu"
actionname2 = "Shown Name2 in the NavMenu"
------- Dataface_NavMenu.html - the whole file -------
- Code: Select all
{*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Dataface Web Application Framework
* Copyright (C) 2005-2006 Steve Hannah (shannah@sfu.ca)
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
* modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
* as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
* of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
*
* Modified by SilverCorvus 2011
* Description of the modification:
* You can add actions like the tables in the conf.ini to the
* new section [_actions_add_to_navmenu] and those actions will be listed in this
* NavMenu before the tables.
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*}
{if $ENV.prefs.horizontal_tables_menu}
<ul id="table_selection_tabs">
{assign var=action_selected value=false}
{block name="tables_menu_head"}
{define_slot name="tables_menu_options"}
{foreach from=$ENV.APPLICATION._actions_add_to_navmenu item=label key=action}
<li {if $ENV.action==$action}{assign var=action_selected value=true}class="selected"{/if}><a href="{$ENV.DATAFACE_SITE_HREF}?-action={$action}"
accesskey="accesskeys-navigation"
class="action-selection-tab {if $ENV.action==$action}selected{/if}"
title="{$label}"
id="TableLink_{$action}">
{$label}
</a></li>
{/foreach}
{foreach from=$ENV.APPLICATION._tables item=label key=table}
<li {if !$action_selected && $ENV.table == $table}class="selected"{/if}><a href="{$ENV.DATAFACE_SITE_HREF}?-table={$table}"
accesskey="accesskeys-navigation"
class="table-selection-tab {if !$action_selected && $ENV.table == $table}selected{/if}"
title="{$label}"
id="TableLink_{$table}">
{$label}
</a></li>
{/foreach}
{/define_slot}
{block name="tables_menu_tail"}
</ul>
{else}
<div class="portlet" id="portlet-navigation-tree">
<div>
<h5>Navigation</h5>
<div class="portletBody">
{assign var=action_selected value=false}
{block name="tables_menu_head"}
{foreach from=$ENV.APPLICATION._actions_add_to_navmenu item=label key=action}
{define_slot name="tables_menu_options"}
<div class="portletContent">
<a href="{$ENV.DATAFACE_SITE_HREF}?-action={$action}"
accesskey="accesskeys-navigation"
class="navItem {if $ENV.action==$action}{assign var=action_selected value=true}currentNavItem{/if}"
title="{$label}"
id="ActionLink_{$action}">
<img
src="{$ENV.DATAFACE_URL}/images/folder_icon.gif" alt="" class="navIconRoot" title="Plone Site" />
<span class="navItemText">
{$label}
</span>
</a>
</div>
{/define_slot}
{/foreach}
{foreach from=$ENV.APPLICATION._tables item=label key=table}
{define_slot name="tables_menu_options"}
<div class="portletContent">
<a href="{$ENV.DATAFACE_SITE_HREF}?-table={$table}"
accesskey="accesskeys-navigation"
class="navItem {if !$action_selected && $ENV.table == $table}currentNavItem{/if}"
title="{$label}"
id="TableLink_{$table}">
<img
src="{$ENV.DATAFACE_URL}/images/folder_icon.gif" alt="" class="navIconRoot" title="Plone Site" />
<span class="navItemText">
{$label}
</span>
</a>
</div>
{/define_slot}
{/foreach}
{block name="tables_menu_tail"}
</div>
</div>
</div>
{/if}
PS: Please excuse me if there are grammar failures or strange expressions, but English isn't my mother tongue. ^^