Vacheslav Starikov's » codecharge http://starikovs.com BLOG Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:05:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Simple ajax editing in CodeCharge Studio http://starikovs.com/2010/08/28/ajax-editing-ccs/ http://starikovs.com/2010/08/28/ajax-editing-ccs/#comments Sat, 28 Aug 2010 07:54:09 +0000 Vacheslav http://starikovs.com/?p=285 Ajax editing in CCS
How to implement an Ajax editing in CodeCharge Studio like in the picture above? Is it easy or not? Yes, it’s easy! It takes a half an hour at the maximum. In this article, I will provide step by step instructions. Also, you can download an example here.

The main idea of this example is the ajax editing without the page refresh. When you click a link in the Grid the Show Modal dialog is opened. The Show Modal dialog contains a Record that allows to edit the data. All the actions are performed inside the Update Panels. Well, stay reading and you will see how to do it… :)

Steps

1. I use test db and a table named countries in my localhost MySQL server.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `test`.`countries`;
CREATE TABLE  `test`.`countries` (
  `id` int(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `name` varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=9 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

2. Add an UpdatePanel to the page and name it Panel1.

3. Add a Grid to the Panel1. Grid should be created for the table countries. For the fields for Grid select only name field.

4. After the Grid’s been created change the Label name to Link. Configure Href Source parameters for the Link. Add the id parameter with the SourceType of DataField and Parameter Source of id field. Leave the Link’s address empty. Also, add a Link for adding a new record. A new record Link should have no parameters and should remove the id parameter (Link->PW->Remove parameters->”id”).

5. Add another UpdatePanel to the page and name it Panel2.

6. Add ShowModal feature to Panel2 (Panel2->PW->Features->Add ShowModal). For the Show event select Panel1->countries->name->onclick and Panel1->countries->New->onclick. It makes ShowModal to be shown when Grid Row Link or Grid New Link is clicked.

7. Add a new Record to a Panel2. A Record should be created on countries table and select only the name field.

8. Add a Link to the end of the Panel2. This Link will hide the opened ShowModal. Also, go to Panel2->PW->Features->ShowModal and select for the Hide event this Link.

9. Add this JavaScript to the end of the <head>:

<script type="text/javascript">
/* This function should be called by links that open the ShowModal dialog. 
 * It sets a new href for the UpdatePanel according of clicked link 
 * and loads the data to the corresponding Record.
 */
function RelocatePanel2() {
    /* Panel2 is an UpdatePanel that contains a Record.
     * Also, Panel2 has a ShowModal feture.
     * Here, the location of the Panel2 is changed to have a new href 
     * with the id for Record.
     */
    $("Panel2").location = this.href;
 
    /* To load a new data to the Record according with the href that 
     * is set above, Panel2 should be reloaded. 
     */
    AjaxPanel.reload($("Panel2"));
}
</script>

10. Again, add to the end of the <head> this style:

<style type="text/css">
/* This style makes Show Modal dialog wider. */
body .ModalShowDiv {
    width: 350px;
}
</style>

11. To the end of the Panel1 add this JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript">
    /* RelocatePanel2() is added to the click event chain so it will be called
     * by all the record links in Grid. 
     * RelocatePanel2() sets a new href for the Record Update Panel and 
     * reloads the Record Update Panel.
     */
    addEventHandler("Panel1countriesname", "click", RelocatePanel2);
    /* Call RelocatePanel2() when a new link is clicked, too. */
    addEventHandler("Panel1countriesNew", "click", RelocatePanel2);
 
    /* RelocatePanel2() and Panel2ShowModal1_show() are in the 
     * click event chain so they are called one after another. 
     */
</script>

When the Panel1 is loaded the corresponding click events are set for the Links. The events should be binded on every refresh of an UpdatePanel and this is exactly what we do here.

12. Add to the end of the Panel2 this JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript">
    /* Reload the Grid Update Panel when some actions with Record are made. */
    AjaxPanel.reload($("Panel1"));
</script>

This JavaScript refreshes the Panel1 with the Grid to reflect the changes that made with the Record.

Conclusion

So, with help of CodeCharge Studio and a bit of coding of JavaScript and CSS the professional ajax applications can be created. For this example, I use a Grid and Record components and UpdatePanel and ShowModal fetures. Also, I use a bit of JavaScript and CSS coding. Now, it’s time to you to try something like this to create :)

Links

CodeCharge Studio

]]> http://starikovs.com/2010/08/28/ajax-editing-ccs/feed/ 0 Centering horizontal CSS menu http://starikovs.com/2009/12/04/centering-horizontal-css-menu/ http://starikovs.com/2009/12/04/centering-horizontal-css-menu/#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:00:16 +0000 Vacheslav http://starikovs.com/?p=176 It’s a real headache to center a fluid block element horizontally with help of CSS. Some time ago I figured out how to center CodeCharge Studio’s CSS Menu because it doesn’t provide this functionality. In general, any block element without the fixed width can be centered with help of this method.

By the way, if You have a fixed width block then You have to set its left and right margins to auto and You get the block centered.

In this article I’m going to explain the method I use to center a fluid block element. Here is the Demo.

With help of this method You can center:

  • CodeCharge Studio’s Menu (CCS Menu)
  • Horizontal CSS Menu
  • Any block elements (DIV, SPAN, IMG, UL, etc.)

HTML

<!-- BEGIN Menu Menu1 -->
<div class="MenuStyle" id="Menu1Container">
  <ul class="adxm {Menu1:MenuType} level1">
  ...
  </ul>
</div>
<!-- END Menu Menu1 -->

CSS

#Menu1Container {
        position: relative;
        float: right;
        right: 50%;
}
#Menu1Container ul {
        position: relative;
        float: left;
        left: 50%;
}
]]> http://starikovs.com/2009/12/04/centering-horizontal-css-menu/feed/ 0 Creating dialog in CodeCharge Studio http://starikovs.com/2009/11/21/creating-dialog-in-ccs/ http://starikovs.com/2009/11/21/creating-dialog-in-ccs/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:33:54 +0000 Vacheslav http://starikovs.com/?p=29 first-ccs-dialogThis article provides CodeCharge Studio developers with a truly easy way to create a custom IDE dialog for different purposes. Here You will learn how to extend CodeCharge Studio with Your own dialog. I am going to explain how to create a custom dialog through an example. We will create together a dialog for embedding a Flash movie into the page. See online example to understand what You will be able to do with help of the dialog. Also, here You can download a source code of the dialog and extend Your CodeCharge Studio with it. In addition to downloading a source code You can download a test project that has a page where a Flash Movie embeded by this dialog. So, let’s start!

1. ToolBox

First of all, we should add a button that runs a dialog. Usually, the dialogs of this type are run from ToolBox. Therefore, we should add a button to ToolBox. By default, ToolBox consists of three tabs: Builders, Forms and HTML. Let’s add our button to the HTML tab. For that we have to create a simple XML file in Components/ToolBox/HTML. Name it FlashMovie.xml.

The contents of this file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<item name="TB_FormsFlashMovieName" 
    number="777" 
    hint="TB_FormsFlashMovieHint" 
    script="..\..\..\Components\Dialogs\HTML\FlashMovie\FlashMovie.js" 
    img="..\..\Icons\Image.ico" />
Attribute Description
name A name of the ToolBox item. Contains a translation key. Translation keys will be discussed a bit later. This attribute is mostly used for internal needs and we are able to use it for our needs.
number An ordered number of the button. It specifies the position of the button in ToolBox tab. I set its value to 777 to have it last.
hint Tooltip text. Appears as a hint when you move a mouse over the button. Contains a translation key.
script Path to script that runs a dialog. We’ll discuss it later.
img An icon for the button. I’ve chosen an icon that is used for <img> tag but You can create an icon yourself and put it to Components/Icons.

2. Translations

All the translations are located in Components/Translations/IDE. To make the translation keys translated You should add them to the text file of your language. For example, to English.txt. CodeCharge Studio should be restarted then translations will be applicable.

TB_FormsFlashMovieName=Flash Movie
TB_FormsFlashMovieHint=Add Flash Movie

Anyway, You may use just string constants instead of translation keys and everything will be working. Minuses of this approach are that our code isn’t translatable and it’s a bad form. Therefore, we are using translation keys in our example.

3. Dialog HTML skeleton

Most of Dialogs in CodeCharge Studio are made out of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. HTML and CSS makes a visual presentation of dialogs. A program logic of dialogs is realized with help of JavaScript. Also, JavaScript deals with IE and CodeCharge Studio object models.

It’s a good form to put script that runs a dialog and dialog’s HTML to the same directory. Let’s create a directory Components/Dialogs/HTML/FlashMovie and an empty text file with the name FlashMovie.html.

Please, put the contents below into the FlashMovie.html. It’s HTML skeleton of the dialog.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
  <title></title>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../dialogs.css" type="text/css">
  <script type="text/javascript" src="../../Common/Common.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    var ccObject, ccApplication, ccProject, ccPage;
 
    function body_onload() {
      // gets Project object
      // it comes from FlashMovie.js
      // FlashMovie.js starts the dialog
      ccObject = ccProject = window.external.dialogArguments;
      // gets current Page object
      ccPage   = ccObject.currentPage;
      // gets Application object
      ccApplication = ccProject.Application;
 
      // translates all the translation keys in the dialog
      TranslateDlg();
      // sets event handlers
      SetUpKeysHandler();
      // sets dialog sizes and shows dialog
      dialogResize(400,175);
 
      // sets dialog title
      window.external.caption(getTranslationString("FlashMovieDialog_Title"));
    }
  </script>
  </head>
  <body onload="body_onload()">
  </body>
</html>
FlashMovieDialog_Title A translation key. You should put it and its value into English.txt, for example.
../../dialogs.css A standard styles file for CodeCharge Studio dialogs.
../../Common/Common.js A common JavaScript functions for CodeCharge Studio dialogs. It isn’t only one file with common functions. There are some others.
body_onload() This function is called when dialog runs. Here we will get some parameters, set dialog sizes, etc.

Dialog HTML skeleton’s been done!

4. Script that runs dialog

As you remember, in the ToolBox button XML we specified what script runs dialog. It’s FlashMovie.js. It should be located in the Components/Dialogs/HTML/FlashMovie as well as FlashMovie.html.

Well, let’s analize the contents of this script:

// includes common functions
#include ..\..\Common\Common.js
 
// ccPage - an object that comes from CCS OM
// with help of ccPage we get reference to Project object
var ccObject    = ccPage.Project;
// if we have Project we can get current Page
var currentPage = ccObject.currentPage;
 
if (currentPage) {
  // getTranslationString() - Components/Common.js
  // starts a transaction for UnDo/ReDo
  var trans = ccObject.Application.undobuffer.starttransaction(
    getTranslationString("Toolbox_Undo_AddNewComponent", 
    getTranslationString("TB_FormsFlashMovieName")), "", currentPage);
 
  if (trans) {
    try {
      // RunDialog2() - Common.js
      // Runs dialog FlashMovie.html and passes Project object into it
      var result = RunDialog2("HTML\\FlashMovie\\FlashMovie.html", ccObject);
 
      if (result) trans.commit();
      else trans.rollback();
    } catch(e) {
      // if something worng show an error
      ccObject.Application.ShowErrorInfoDlg(0, currentPage);
      trans.rollback();
    }
  } else {
    // MessageBox - Components/Common.js
    MessageBox(getTranslationString("Toolbox_Undo_TransactionAlreadyOpened"));
  }
}
#include A proprietary directive that includes scripts into scripts.
getTranslationString() Declared in Dialogs/Common/Common.js. It returns a translated string by translation key. Translation keys may include %s placeholders. For example, look at the key “Toolbox_Undo_AddNewComponent=%s was added”. This key is used in the settransaction(). It gets two parameters: first one for translation key and the second one for the placeholder value.

I think everything else in this script You can understand through comments in the script. If I am wrong You may ask me for some explanations.

Now, having the ToolBox button, translations, HTML and JavaScript code of the dialog, You may try to start the dialog. But at the moment You are having an empty window. That’s good! Let’s go ahead! :)

5. Preparing HTML template

As our purpose is to understand how the CodeCharge Studio dialogs are created I’ve simplified the logic of the dialog. In the dialog we will ask user for the Flash Movie file, width and height of the movie. Nothing more. The HTML code that will be pasted to a page is based on the following template:

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" 
  codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" 
  width="{width}" height="{height}">
    <param name="movie" value="{movie}">
    <param name="quality" value="high">
    <embed src="{movie}" quality="high" 
      pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" 
      type="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
      width="{width}" height="{height}"></embed>
</object>

Placeholders:

{movie} Path to the Flash Movie (*.swf). It should be located in the project folder.
{width} Width of the movie.
{height} Height of the move.

We will process this template when the OK button is clicked. The placeholders will be replaced with the real values. After processing the template the resultant HTML code will be pasted into a page.

6. Dialog presentation

As I’ve written above the HTML presentation of the dialog is made up with help of HTML and CSS. Sometimes, JavaScripts is used to add some dynamics. OK, here is HTML that should be placed to <body> of FlashMovie.html:

<!-- layout table -->
<table id="content" style="margin:5px;" class="table">
<tr>
  <td>
    <!-- label tags can contain translation keys -->
    <label for="swf">FlashMovieDialog_Swf</label>
  </td>
  <td colspan="2">
    <!-- Flash Movie source -->
    <input type="text" id="swf" size="40" maxlength="255">
    <!-- shows an Open File dialog to select a Flash Movie -->
    <button class="button" onclick="browseForSwf();" style="width:30px;">
      ...
    </button>
  </td>
</tr><tr>
  <td>
    <label for="swfWidth">FlashMovieDialog_SwfWidth</label>
  </td>
  <td style="width:100px;">
    <!-- the width of a Flash Movie -->
    <input type="text" id="swfWidth" size="4" maxlength="4" value="200">
  </td>
</tr><tr>
  <td>
    <label for="swfHeight">FlashMovieDialog_SwfHeight</label>
  </td>
  <td style="width:100px;">
    <!-- the height of a Flash Movie -->
    <input type="text" id="swfHeight"size="4" maxlength="4" value="200">
  </td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr>
<!-- calls OnCancel() to close the dialog without chages -->
<button class="button" onclick="OnCancel();" 
  style="float:right;margin-right:10px;">
  Button_Cancel
</button>
<!-- calls OnOK() to insert a Flash Movie to the page -->
<button class="button" onclick="OnOK();" 
  style="float:right;margin-right:3px;">
  Button_OK
</button>

7. Dialog logic

The last step is creating some JavaScript functions. These functions helps us to make the logic of our dialog. Here we define handlers for OK and Cancel buttons as well as for button that opnes an Open File dialog to select an swf (Flash Movie), also we can put here some checkers, etc. So, add this code after the body_onload() function.

// closes the dialog without changes
function OnCancel() {
  // closes the dialog and returns false to dialogs caller
  window.external.cancel();
}
 
// applies changes and closes the dialog
function OnOK() {
  // checks if the entered data is valid
  if (!CheckData()) return false;
  // applies changes
  OnApply();
  // closes the dialog and returns true to the dialogs caller
  window.external.ok();
}
 
function OnApply() {
  // defines HTML template for the Flash Movie
  var htmlTemplate = "<object classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\"";
  htmlTemplate += " codebase=\"http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0\"";
  htmlTemplate += " width=\"{width}\" height=\"{height}\">";
  htmlTemplate += "<param name=\"movie\" value=\"{movie}\">";
  htmlTemplate += "<param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\">";
  htmlTemplate += "<embed src=\"{movie}\" quality=\"high\""
  htmlTemplate += " pluginspage=\"http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer\""
  htmlTemplate += " type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\""
  htmlTemplate += " width=\"{width}\" height=\"{height}\"></embed></object>";
  // gets the Flash Movie source
  var movie = document.getElementById("swf").value;
  // gets the width
  var width = document.getElementById("swfWidth").value;
  // gets the height
  var height = document.getElementById("swfHeight").value;
  // parses the template
  var result = htmlTemplate.replace(/\{movie\}/gi, movie);
  result = result.replace(/\{width\}/gi, width);
  result = result.replace(/\{height\}/gi, height);
  // inserts HTML to the page
  // declared in Components/Common.js	
  pasteHTML(result);
}
 
// checks the entered data for validity
function CheckData() {
  // put here some checks if You need
  return true;
}
 
// opens an Open File dialog to select swf (Flash Movie)
// returns a project relative path to selected swf
function browseForSwf() {
  var projectPath = ccProject.Path;
  // browseFile() - Components/Common.js
  browseFile(
    document.getElementById("swf"), /* puts the path to this control */
    true, /* relative path */
    getTranslationString("Dialogs_FileFilter_Swf"), /* file filter */
    projectPath, /* source directory */
    false, /* return with backslashes */
    true /* only project files */
  );
}

Conclusion

And now Your dialog should work! Congratulations :)

You can test it by placing a Flash Movie into a project folder and pasting it into a page with help of Your dialog. Then go to Project->Settings->Publishing and configure extesions of the publishing files, in general, add swf extension. Then publish a project and enjoy Your work! :)

You can download here the source code of the dialog and copy it to Your Components folder. But be careful with translations, You should copy text from the example file Components/Translations/IDE/English_example.txt and paste it to the end of the file Components/Translations/IDE/English.txt of Your Components.

I’ve tested this example in CodeCharge Studio 3 and 4.

If You have questions or wishes I am waiting for Your comments. I am also going to publish some other articles about extending CodeCharge Studio as well as about CCS features.

Download

Dialog Source Code (FirstDialogSrc.zip)

Test Project (FirstDialog.zip)

Links

CodeCharge Studio’s web site

Flash example

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