AutoTemplatePlugin

Automatically sets VIEW_TEMPLATE and EDIT_TEMPLATE

Description

This plugin sets the VIEW_TEMPLATE and EDIT_TEMPLATE variables according to a corresponding form or rule. For example, when you attach a new form to a topic, this plugin will enable the corresponding view/edit template automatically. This comes in very handy for applications where users create new topics without the help of a topic creator wizard, e.g. creating a new topic for a yet non-existing WikiWord. Together with the appropriate application settings, this plugin will then assure that the data the user enters is handled appropriately during view and edit.

Another use case is to apply a VIEW_TEMPLATE to a set of topics whose name matches a given pattern rule.

There are three base strategies on how the name of the template is derived:

1. exist
2. section
3. rules

These can be combined in a priorized list defaulting to rules, exist. This will try each strategy in the given order until a matching view template is found.

Note: this is a fork of the Foswiki:Extensions.AutoViewTemplatePlugin by Oliver Krüger. The difference between both is that AutoTemplatePlugin adds a rule-based strategy to derive VIEW_ and EDIT_TEMPLATEs as well as replacing the fixed selection which strategy to use with a priority of modes (see below).

If you decide to install AutoTemplatePlugin then please disable the AutoViewTemplatePlugin. Do not use both in parallel.

Mode "exist"

A topic that has a MyForm WikiForm attached to it, will be displayed using the view template MyView and editted using the MyEdit if they exist. The template name is derived by stripping off the suffix ...Form from the form name and appending ...View. The Wiki engine will then use the template name MyView to search for the correct template along the template search path, for example using a topic MyView.

Examples:

You have a form called PurchaseRequestForm. The plugin will now search for PurchaseRequestViewTemplate, and PurchaseRequestEditTemplate.

Mode "section"

A topic with a MyForm will be displayed/editted using the template name stored in the named section viewtemplate/edittemplate . For example given the MyForm form definition topic contains a section viewtemplate whose only content is MyOtherView, then this will be used to view the topic. Likewise, the content of the edittemplate section in MyForm will read to find the edit template.

By default existing values for VIEW_TEMPLATE and EDIT_TEMPLATE have priority. You can change this behaviour in configure so that the form defined templates have priority.

Examples:

We have a form called PurchaseRequestForm which contains the usual table that defined the form fields.

We want this form to define that the topics are viewed with ViewFormAtTopTemplate and edited with EditPurchaseRequestTemplate.

Below this we place the two sections that defines the templates to be used. Note that you must ommit the ...Template from the template names.

%STARTSECTION{"viewtemplate"}%ViewFormAtTopTemplate%ENDSECTION{"edittemplate"}%

%STARTSECTION{"edittemplate"}%EditPurchaseRequest%ENDSECTION{"edittemplate"}% 

Mode "rules"

For both view and edit, a set of rules can be specified in configure where each rule has got the format

   '<pattern>' => '<template name>'

A topic's name will be matched against the regular expression in <pattern> to decide on the template name to be used for the current template. A pattern can either cover the full qualified topic name (web.topic) or just the topic name. Rules are checked against the FQTN first.

Examples:

$Foswiki::cfg{Plugins}{AutoTemplatePlugin}{ViewTemplateRules} = {
  'WebTopicList' => 'WebTopicListView',
  'Tasks\.Item.*' => 'Tasks.ItemView',
  'Item.*' => 'Applications.TaskApp.ItemView',
  'WebSearch.*' => 'KinoSearchView',
};

This will apply the WebTopicListViewTemplate to the WebTopicList topic in all webs, the KinoSearchViewTemplate to all WebSearch and WebSearchAdvanced topics in all webs and the Tasks.ItemViewTemplate to all Item topics in the Tasks web. Other Item topics will be displayed using the Applications.TaskApp.ItemViewTemplate

Configuration Settings

The following settings can be defined in configure

Plugin Installation Instructions

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.

Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. Use "Find More Extensions" to get a list of available extensions. Select "Install".

If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See http://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.

Plugin Info