[Tip]Creating snippets or plugins the easy way

3,250 Posts

MARKSVIRTUALDESK Reply #11, 21 years, 1 month ago

Yeah. Just use a template containing only my GrabPage snippet and then you can avoid copying and pasting.

577 Posts

Carsten Reply #12, 21 years, 1 month ago

Sweet! That’s exactly what the doctor ordered.

Thanks!

Tangent-Warrior

3,250 Posts

MARKSVIRTUALDESK Reply #13, 21 years, 1 month ago

Your welcome

93 Posts

neverbeclever Reply #14, 21 years, 1 month ago

Quote from: xwisdom at Aug 02, 2005, 12:37 PM

ob_start()
   include "whatere.php";
   startApp(); // here my app uses echo to output text
   return ob_get_content();
ob_end_clean();

Great tip, I use it all the time, thanks!
This is what I found on php.net. Same thing in a handy function.

function get_include_contents($filename) {
  if (is_file($filename)) {
    ob_start();
      include $filename;
      $contents = ob_get_contents();
      ob_end_clean();
      return $contents;
  }
  return false;
}

$output = get_include_contents("assets/snippets/somesnippet/somsnippet.main.php");

return $output;

138 Posts

French Frog Reply #15, 20 years, 9 months ago

Quote from: Mark at Aug 26, 2005, 12:28 PM

Yeah. Just use a template containing only my GrabPage snippet and then you can avoid copying and pasting.

Where can I find more information on Grabpage ? Etosite is down for now...
Thanks

Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
I Corinthians (ch. XV, v. 33)

9 Posts

tipolito Reply #16, 20 years, 7 months ago

Great tip!! so I can include in modx any kind of code without difficoult.

215 Posts

netnoise Reply #17, 20 years, 6 months ago

By the way, if you have snippets that should die under certain conditions, you can improve your debugging process by using the logEvent API function:

// Example
if(!is_set($needed_variable)) {
  $error_message = "[".$modx->getSnippetName()."] The following error occured while processing document ".$modx->documentIdentifier.": \n";
  $error_message.= "Your error message goes here.";
  $modx->Event->alert($error_message);
  $modx->logEvent(0, 3, $error_message, $modx->getSnippetName());
  return "<!-- ".$modx->getSnippetName()." failed -->";
}

This helps you identifying the error by inserting the the DocID where the custom error occured into event log, and it will leave a mark in the html-source of you document.

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wendy Reply #18, 20 years, 6 months ago

That’s a nice tip netnoise.

Thanks for the info, I never thought of that.

Wendy Novianto
[font=Verdana]PT DJAMOER Technology Media
[font=Verdana]Xituz Media

25 Posts

Vadko Reply #19, 18 years, 2 months ago

This technique can be used with templates and chunks?

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sottwell Reply #20, 18 years, 2 months ago

Yes, you can use a simple snippet to include your external file as the only content of a template or a chunk. Although I don’t think there’s much point in doing it with a chunk, since for the most part they are intended to be small bits of HTML and text, like footer content, that wouldn’t really much benefit from being in an external file.

Consider that MODx first has to go to the database to get the content of the chunk, then eval() the snippet’s php code, which in turn goes to the filesystem to get the external file. Kind of a lot of overhead for a couple of lines of text. But you have to weigh the cost/benefit and decide when it’s worth the overhead to make life more convenient.

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