Sample code using MACssRenderer, MADivsRenderer or Magritte-ComponentDecoration?

Hi all..

I'm trying to wrap my brain around the above classes and what they  
offer over the default rendering that Magritte offers  
(MATableRenderer)... To that end, I've seen a few little snippets  
using a little of the above but still can't seem to figure out the  
typical usage scenario.. I've got existing css that I would like to  
use to dress up various pieces of one or more objects -- similar to  
what Keith has submitted in photo form here on this mailing list  
earlier this year (enclosing various fields in boxes,etc).. Anyway, if  
someone can post a little code that can do something akin to that,  
that would get me past my current hurdle.. MANY thanks in advance!

-- Rick


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MATableRenderer (default) and MACssRenderer are complementary. These  
classes define how the different input fields are laid out in the  
XHTML. You can choose a different renderer by overriding the container  
description:

        descriptionContainer
                ^ super descriptionContainer componentRenderer: MACssRenderer

* MATableRenderer creates something along:

<table>
        <tr class="group">
                <th colspan="2">[Group]</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
                <th>[Label]</th>
                <td>[Component]</th>
        </tr>
        ...
</table>

This is what traditional web applications mostly had. It looks ok even  
without applying any style-sheets.

* MACssRenderer creates something along:

<dl>
        <dt class="group">[Group]</dt>
        <dt>[Label]</dt>
        <dd>[Component]</dd>
        ...
</dl>

This is is a more modern approach (semantically meaningful) and  
requires some CSS tweaking.

In both cases you don't have many possibilities to tweak the XHTML  
generation. You might set a CSS class to the descriptions though, that  
gets added to <th>, <td> and <dt>, <dd> respectively:

        descriptionFirstName
                ^ MAStringDescription new
                        accesssor: #firstName;
                        cssClass: 'firstname';
                        yourself

In your case you probably need to provide your own implementation of a  
renderer.

* The components (subclasses of MADescriptionComponent) provide the  
view of the description. Every description has a default component,  
but some have addition views. You can choose the different view like  
this:

        descriptionVegetarian
                ^ MABooleanDescription new
                        accessor: #vegetarian;
                        componentClass: MACheckboxComponent;
  "or MASelectListComponent or MARadioGroupComponent" ;
                        yourself

* The decorations (subclasses of MAComponentDecoration) are solely  
used to attach the form around the components, to display the error  
messages and to add form buttons.

Hope this helps? I might turn this answer into a blog post someday ;-)

Cheers,
Lukas

--
Lukas Renggli
http://www.lukas-renggli.ch


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On Aug 10, 2008, at 11:46 PM, Lukas Renggli wrote:

[ ... snippet content ... ]

Lukas -- Thanks for the great write-up!  That is what I was looking  
for and something I think that ought
to be captured in an FAQ at least.. Anyway -- if I want to write my  
own renderer, I'm assuming the
renderer will get a copy of the object to be rendered or does it work  
differently?  If you want to point me
to an example, that would be good too!  Thanks again!

-- Rick





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>>>>> "Richard" == Richard E Flower <[hidden email]> writes:

Richard> Anyway -- if I want to write my own renderer, I'm assuming the
Richard> renderer will get a copy of the object to be rendered or does it work
Richard> differently?  If you want to point me to an example, that would be
Richard> good too!  Thanks again!

The best examples, as always, are the source code for the existing renderers.
I learned a lot from studying the source code, although the whole visitor
pattern thing turns everything sideways and requires having a quite a bit
of screen real estate to have all the particpating classes on the screen
at once. :)

--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<[hidden email]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion

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