[plugin] Adding logic to your Templates ? ==> TemplateLogic plugin :)

Hi all,

First : Thanks for all your modx job, really impressive guys

Now, after this ’I love you guys’ phasis, let’s go to the main subject : Template Logic

Since we started working on Modx with a collegue of mine, we found that it missed a kind of TemplateLogic.

Situation :
"Imagine you have a template in which you want to display a picture (url defined in a TV:image). This image will be linked to a document (ID defined in another TV : doc).
In term of presentation, if image url is not defined ... it will not be really pretty . If there is no id, a link will be created to [~~] ... "

The only way to avoid si ’dirty’ behaviour was to create a snippet to verify if ’image’ and ’doc’ were defined and then ad the chunk. If not, no display...

This solution is interesting except that for each TV/parameter and/or condition (perhaps it won’t be empty but <19 or <>"bye", ...) you have to create a new snipet.
Moreover, in our opinion, it is clearly not the snippets role to define the way HTML part will be displayed. We also don’t want to rely on Javascript ( :’( )

To solve our disappointement , we developped our TemplateLogic
It will be released soon as a plugin (our development was made modifiying Modx Parser so we cannot publish it as it is )

Our idea :
Add new ’tags’ to be parsed by Modx to decide or not to display part of HTML template.

Syntax :

[-if &condition=`true`-]
test if
[-endif-]

[-if &condition=`[+author+]==13` -]
HTML texts / chunk calls / snippet calls ...
[-else-]
HTML texts / chunk calls / snippet calls ...
[-endif-]

Syntax2 (under study) :
{{chunkName? &type=`if` &condition=`[*id*]==12` }} to be really close to snippet call syntax ...

I’ll come back later to publish our plugin in a documented Way but BTW, please feel free to give us your comments on this.
(perhaps we missed some feature in Modx that can do what we were looking for ...)

Great job. This is a perfect application for a plugin. Thanks for taking the initiative; I look forward to seeing the results!

This would be absolutely stunning. You ask if you’ve missed an existing feature.. well, there is a new parser in development that does many things and touches on this territory, but that shouldn’t particularly negate what you’re doing.

I absolutely agree with the need to remove dirty behaviour. Other systems have a lot of <strong>[field that might not actually have any content]</strong>, which always annoys me.

Being able to specify in a template a style to apply around a snippet but only have that html output if it’s needed is very exciting.

I prefer the first syntax, given that it will wrap around HTML and snippets etc. A snippet call-type syntax is probably more confusing.

Can you confirm that
[-if &condition=`[+picture+]` -]
would evaluate to true if the "picture" tv wasn’t empty?

One note: I definitely recommend that you go through and verify that there are sufficient plugin points to convert your hacked parser into a plugin code ASAP. While MODx 0.9.5 is being completed there’s the opportunity for new ones to be added if there is a need for them.

BTW, I particularly like that you have considered and explored the current methods and then decided to plug the gap in MODx’s page construction logic. This has to my favourite First Post *ever*.

This is amazing, I have to agree with Paul about the greatest first post ever, quite a striking way to enter the community

Conditionnal testing is a key missing feature for me, especially since it means cleaner templates but also, less of them (and this means less maintenance, less potential errors...).

I really look forward to test this plugin, the concept sure is great !

Hi,

I discover Modx one month ago and I work with chapi456 who posted this topic. We develop a first version of TemplateLogic plugin. I test the ask of PaulGregory and can confirm the possibility of use TV, variable or placeholder in the condition clause .

Quote from: PaulGregory at Oct 04, 2006, 10:16 AM

Can you confirm that
[-if &condition=`[+picture+]` -]
would evaluate to true if the "picture" tv wasn’t empty?

If the tv is empty, the test is false.

For example you can use this syntax in document content, chunk or template like this :

[-if &condition=`[*id*] == 10`-]
{{callChunkOK}}
[-else-]
{{callChunkKo}}
[-endif-]

or

[-if &condition=`[*myTV*]`-]
[*myTV*]
[-endif-]

Me and chapi456 will come back tomorrow or on the next week to publish this plugin and allow you to test it

Ok, cool looking forward to this one

I was toying with a similar solution which will be included in the upcoming PHx plugin version.