Looking for ideas on table maintenance

wolfcry911 · 2011-10-13 03:32:38

I’m developing a site that contains a section with monthly news summaries. Along with the narrative are two simple tables (2 col. x 16 rows) where the second column’s numbers change every month.

I’m looking for the best way to implement this so that the (technically challenged) end-users can easily enter the narrative and table data. I’ve toyed with idea of using aks_table plugin and putting the tables into the excerpt, but I can’t guarantee the end-user will know how to implement that (as easy as it is). I’m wondering if I should separate the narrative from the table data, or use custom fields (doesn’t seem appropriate here), or some other solution.

Any help is appreciated.

jakob · 2011-10-13 07:36:02

Your excerpt idea sounds most manageable with you controlling the txp:aks_table command and the excerpt content serving as the filling (you’ll just need to strip off the p tags or make the excerpt non-textiled), e.g.

<txp:aks_table h="1" id="monthly_results">
Column heading 1	Column heading 2
   <txp:rah_replace from="<p>,</p>" to=""><txp:excerpt /></txp:rah_replace>
</txp:aks_table>

Alternatively if you want to use your own notation, e.g. heading:value you could write your own using the same principle but with rah_replace or pax_grep for more complex search and replace combinations, e.g.:

<table id="monthly_results">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Column heading 1</th>
      <th>Column heading 2</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
<txp:rah_replace from="<p>,</p>,:,
" to="<tr><td>,</td></tr>,</td><td>,</td></tr><tr><td>"><txp:excerpt /></txp:rah_replace>
  </tbody>
</table>

Both untested, but you get the principle. The new line in the “from” attribute is intentional (see this comment in the rah_replace thread).

If rah_replace complains about the new line, you could try pax_grep in combination with the regex codes for new line and “:”.

Last edited by jakob (2011-10-13 07:42:39)

wolfcry911 · 2011-10-14 12:25:57

Thanks jakob. I like the idea of using our own notation…

wolfcry911 · 2011-10-17 02:14:19

Well, I’ve played around with these options a bit and I’m not satisfied.

After some thought, I was going to use your first suggestion jakob, but in conjuction with glz_custom_fields and two extra text area fields (instead of excerpt). Well, I tested fairly thoroughly with just the excerpt and never got it to work. I believe now that the aks_table needs to be in the write window when saved in order to process. In other words, I don’t believe I can use the aks_table plugin outside of the textile context.

Then I moved on to your next suggestion, and although I have it working, it seems a bit clunky. I (or the end-user) needs to eliminate tabs and replace with a colon and also make sure to keep an extra carriage return between entries – otherwise you get a br instead of a p.

Ultimately, I’d love what this person asked for here
Don’t know if it’s possible, but I’d be willing to pay for something like this.

jakob · 2011-10-17 08:31:27

I had a closer look at the code in txp:aks_table and it is definitely built to be used with the body and excerpt fields as it includes a special routine that hooks into the publish/save event and adds a space in front of the txp:aks_table tag in case one forgets. In the example I showed it matches the heading line without any problems but then fails on the excerpt. I tried farming the rah_replaced excerpt into a variable and then including only that but without success. My guess is that aks_table doesn’t like txp tags in tags so you will need to include the aks_table tag within the excerpt after all (which was what you were trying to avoid).

Going back to the second approach, if you want tabs instead of a colon and no brs, try this:

<table id="monthly_results">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Column 1</th>
      <th>Column 2</th>
      <th>Column 3</th>
      <th>Column 4</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
<txp:rah_replace from="<br />,	<p>,</p>,	,
" to=",<tr><td>,</td></tr>,</td><td>,</td></tr><tr><td>"><txp:excerpt /></txp:rah_replace>
  </tbody>
</table>

Note copy carefully as what look like blank spaces above are tab characters. The tab character in front of the first p is also intentional as that’s added to the excerpt on saving an article and results in a stray table cell if you don’t include it in the search and replace.

This is what I have in my excerpt (copied directly from the cells of an excel table):

square	circle	triangle	pentagon
123	456	789	10
apples	oranges	pears	cherries

and this is the output it produces:

<table id="monthly_results">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Column 1</th>
      <th>Column 2</th>
      <th>Column 3</th>
      <th>Column 4</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
<tr><td>square</td><td>circle</td><td>triangle</td><td>pentagon</td></tr><tr><td>123</td><td>456</td><td>789</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>apples</td><td>oranges</td><td>pears</td><td>cherries</td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

If you want cleaner html output change the rah_replace line as follows:

<txp:rah_replace from="<br />,
,	<p>,	,</p>" to=",</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>,    <tr>
      <td>,</td>
      <td>,</td>
    </tr>"><txp:excerpt /></txp:rah_replace>

(look horrible but produces clean output – decide what you prefer to be more readable: the html output or your txp:code. Either way it makes no difference to the end user or visitor)

Bloke · 2011-10-17 09:33:29

jakob wrote:

My guess is that aks_table doesn’t like txp tags in tags

It’s not parsing the content. Try altering line 20 of aks_table to:

$lines=explode("\n", parse($thing));

and you should be good to go.

One thing though: in your first example, rah_replace doesn’t deal with the removal of the leading newline so the first cell is blank in your square/circle example text. You got round that in your second version.

A better approach than rah_replace might be etz_striptags here. Or, if you prefer a swiss army knife approach, I have a plugin that I’m just about to release which can strip tags as part of its other duties.

Hope that helps.

jakob · 2011-10-17 11:49:55

Try altering line 20 of aks_table

Ah, that’s good to know. Also means my initial approach wasn’t quite as bungled then after all.

One thing though: in your first example, rah_replace doesn’t deal with the removal of the leading newline

You mean the aks_table example and the leading tab (I think)…

A better approach than rah_replace might be etz_striptags here. Or, if you prefer a swiss army knife approach, I have a plugin that I’m just about to release which can strip tags as part of its other duties.

Yes, although you still need rah_replace or similar for the tabs. The swiss army knife is a godsend :-)

wolfcry911 · 2011-10-17 12:03:24

wow, thank you both!

bloke, look forward to seeing your new plugin.

jakob, thanks for all that work – I had tried an example replacing the colon with a tab and using the break, but I made the mistake of simply replacing the closing p with the br and therefor had no opening table row or data (I didn’t account for the missing opening p). Your updated second approach will work perfectly for me – I was hoping the end-user could just copy paste the table they have into a field and be done with it.

Oh, incidentally, I’ll opt for clean html output over clean txp:code any day ;) – not sure why other than I like a clean finished product.

Bloke · 2011-10-17 12:40:54

jakob wrote:

You mean the aks_table example and the leading tab (I think)…

Uhh, yeah sorry. I didn’t check if it was a tab or a newline which was lame of me, but the result was the same: a bogus tab at the start of the list which threw everything off by one cell.

Yes, although you still need rah_replace or similar for the tabs.

You’re right. etz_striptags doesn’t trim(). Again, sorry for the bogus info.

The swiss army knife is a godsend :-)

Yeah, I can’t get enough of it at the moment. In this case it trims by default and you can apply the strip_tags format so it does the job of both plugins, woot!

In the end I got it to work by pasting this into my excerpt:

square	circle	triangle	pentagon
123	456	789	10
apples	oranges	pears	cherries

and then using the following in my default Form:

<txp:aks_table h="1" id="monthly_results">
Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
   <txp:smd_wrap format="strip_tags"><txp:excerpt /></txp:smd_wrap>
</txp:aks_table>

Of course, that is a simplistic case if you know there are always going to be 4 columns of data. To cope with variable headers would require more brainpower than I have available on a Monday.

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#1 2011-10-13 03:32:38

Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#2 2011-10-13 07:36:02

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#3 2011-10-14 12:25:57

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#4 2011-10-17 02:14:19

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#5 2011-10-17 08:31:27

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#6 2011-10-17 09:33:29

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#7 2011-10-17 11:49:55

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#8 2011-10-17 12:03:24

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

#9 2011-10-17 12:40:54

Re: Looking for ideas on table maintenance

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