bda.plone.finder 1.0b7

Overview

This package provides an AJAX browser for Plone sites.

It uses the column browsing metaphor of OSX finder.

The intention was to speed up content management issues, and fast content browsing in Plone.

Installation

• Make egg available in your Plone site

• Apply corresponding GS profile

Restrictions

Currently only Archetypes based content can be browsed. Dexterity is not supported yet due to missing UID indexing in portal_catalog. This will be changed in future when plone.uuid is available and an indexable attribute can hook missing information.

Usage

After installation you have a link named ‘Finder’ in the document actions. The finder gets displayed with focus on triggering context by clicking this link.

AJAX Views Used by finder JS

• bda.plone.finder browser view is requested for initial finder rendering via XML HTTP request and the returned markup gets displayed inside the overlay.

• For expanding columns respective rendering details columns the views bda.plone.finder.expand and bda.plone.finder.details are requested.

• The actions configuration for focused context is requested by bda.plone.finder.actioninfo browser view as JSON request.

• Execution of ajax actions is done by requesting bda.plone.finder.execute, again as JSON request.

Application behavior

Providing Custom Actions

To add an action to finder, you have to write an bda.plone.finder.interfaces.IAction implementation. A base implementation exists in bda.plone.finder.browser.actions which you can derive from.

>>> from bda.plone.finder.browser.actions import Action
>>> class MyAction(Action):
...     title = _('My Action')
...     order = 10
...     group = 10
...     ajax = True
...
...     @property
...     def enabled(self):
...         return True
...
...     def __call__(self):
...         # do something
...         return 'foo', None

Register your action via ZCML.

  <adapter for="* zope.publisher.interfaces.http.IHTTPRequest"
      name="my_action"
      factory=".mypackage.MyAction"
  />


* ``order``, ``group`` and ``title`` attributes are used for action rendering
  in finder menu bar.

* The ``enabled`` property defines action availability for focused context
  and is requested during object focus in UI via
  ``bda.plone.finder.actioninfo`` view.

* If ``ajax`` property is set to ``True``, finder JS calls
  ``bda.plone.finder.execute`` with appropriate object uid and action id. In
  this case ``__call__`` function must be implemented, which gets triggered
  by ``bda.plone.finder.execute`` view.

* If ``ajax`` property is set to False, ``url`` property must be provided. On
  non ajax actions finder just follows provided URL.

You can hook custom Javascript on the client side, if some ajax action requires this. 3 hooks are provided. After action was loaded by actioninfo view, before action is executed, and after action has been executed.

$.extend(finder.hooks.actions_loaded, {

    // after load hooks gets passed ``finder.actions`` object
    my_after_load_hook: function(actions) {
        // do something
    }
});

$.extend(finder.hooks.actions, {

    // action id
    my_action: {

        // hook before action is executed. you can use this i.e. for
        // validation.
        //
        // gets passed focused object uid, container uid and the action
        // callback, which must be called if action finally should be
        // executed.
        before: function(uid, container, callback) {
            // do something
            callback();
        },

        // hook after action is executed you can use this i.e. for dom
        // manipulation depending on action result.
        //
        // gets passed focused object uid, container uid and the JSON result
        // from ajax action execution.
        after: function(uid, container, data) {
            // do something
        }
    }
});

If you want to skip one ore another hook, set it to null.

Note: on non ajax action, after hooks are never called!

Development and evaluation

you can checkout and install from source code. Plone 4 buildout configuration is included.

https://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/bda.plone.finder/trunk/

Compatibility

Credits

• Robert Niederreiter <dev@bluedynamics.com>

• Thanks to the Sprinters at Cathedral Sprint 2010 for ideas and feedback

Changes