On July 10, 1998 at 21:38, Lalo Martins wrote:
Next/prev page related resource variables are available for index
pages. Check the index page related layout resources for the variables
available. Index pages also have first/last link capabilities.
Huh, no. Look. When I'm writing message markup, I can use either
$NEXTLINK$ - so I get a text link saying something like "next
message" - or $NEXTBUTTON$ - to get a small button, that
presumably takes up less space. I like to use the button on the
top of the html page, where I want things clean, and the (text)
link at the bottom, where I want more detail.
You can check my design at
http://www.webcom.com/lalo/BroDar/lista/msg00000.html and see
what I mean.
So I would like to have a resource, probably named
$NEXTPGBUTTON$, that would resolve to a small button and no
text. Get it now?
Why not customize $NEXTBUTTON$ to do this?
$NEXTLINK$ and $NEXTBUTTON$ are controled by resources. Hence,
you can redefine them to whatever you like. The names try to imply
there use, but you can completely change them to do whatever you
want. Check out the NEXTLINK, NEXTLINKIA, NEXTBUTTON, and NEXTBUTTONIA.
BTW, nothing prevents you from using both resource variables.
How do you think the default settings work? The defaults actually
follow the style you are trying to achieve with the exception that
the "buttons" are textual.
A limitation is that there are only 2 resource variables for each
navigation type (next by main, prev by main, next by thread, and prev
by thread). So if you want more than 2 links for a given navigation
type, you will have to change code. However, I would question the
reason why more than 2 would be needed.
In the grand scheme of things, many resources have names that imply a
certain function, but they can be redefined to do something else. For
example, I can change NEXTLINK (and w/NEXTLINKIA determine $NEXTLINK$
at runtime) to just output a button, and NEXTBUTTON to output a long
textual link. Now, there is some dependency on how it is used. I.e.
NEXTLINK is tied into the condition if there is a next message or
not (hence the NEXTLINKIA resource also). Therefore, NEXTLINK, and
similiar resources, do have that restriction, but you can define
the markup however you like.
The names and the default settings are designed inorder to prevent
a user to have to completely understand how all the layout is done
to make simple customizations. For example, if I want my top "button"
links to contain icons, I can just change the *BUTTON[IA] resources.
I do not have to mess with anything else. If I just want to change
the title for the archive, I just set the TITLE resource -- which
actually defines the $IDXTITLE$ variable which is used in the <TITLE>
element in main index page -- however, a user does not need to know
that to change title. The hard way is to change the IDXPGBEGIN
resource (where $IDXTITLE$ is used, by default).
However, if you get more experienced, or want to completely change the
layout from the default scheme, you can. You may just have to look
beyond the names of some resources inorder to find the way to achieve
your layout goals.
That's not what I mean, again. I mean I would like my multiple
thread indexes to be named "thread01.html" "thread02.html" ...
instead of "thrd1.html"...
The <IDXFMAME> and <TIDXFNAME> only let me define the filename
for the first pages. Unless I'm being dumb again. Or maybe
there's a newer version than the one I'm using (2.1.0)
v2.2 is the latest (check the RELNOTES if you upgrade *VERY IMPORTANT*).
As for you question, the prefixes for index pages beyond the
first can be set by resources. That is why a mentioned an earlier
message. Look at IDXPREFEX and TIDXPREFIX.
Because of the number of resources available, it is definitely easy to
overlook resources that may solve a given problem. The documentation
is referenced oriented, and not task oriented (with the exception of
the Quick Start chapter).
--ewh
----
Earl Hood | University of California: Irvine
ehood(_at_)medusa(_dot_)acs(_dot_)uci(_dot_)edu | Electronic
Loiterer
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/ | Dabbler of SGML/WWW/Perl/MIME
