Related content browser snippet preview

Rhythmyx Technical Discussion
1

I’ve devised a way to wrap a snippet in dummy containing divs if it’s being viewed using regular snippet preview from the content explorer, with these divs being dropped if the item is in a page. This means the snippet looks as it would in a page.

I’ve also managed to set a default rxs_navbase value for when a user is in the active assembly table editor and clicks a related item snippet preview, which has no site or folder id passed to it, so that also renders my snippets relatively well - there may be a better way to do this, I suppose by trying to look up the id of the containing folder and thereby the site id and not trying to pick up the rxs_navbase value until those values are populated.

But for the life of me I can’t work out how to get the related content browser, when looking for a snippet to attach in a slot, to show anything resembling what the snippet will actually look like, ie apply any styles.

Anyone got any hints?

2

Hi,

I’d be in your debt if you would share how you accomplished those two things. I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying …

Thanks,

Matt

3

Sure.

At the top of every snippet and page template I call a macro:

#lg_setvariables()##

This macro, in rx_assembly.vm (System Design > User Velocity Macros) does this:

#macro(lg_setvariables)##
#if($containingtemplate)#set($iscontained=true)#else#set($iscontained=false)#end##
#set($xyz = $sys.assemblyItem.bindings.put('$containingtemplate', $rx.asmhelper.getSingleParamValue($sys.params,'sys_contentid')))##
#if(!$rxs_navbase)#set($rxs_navbase="../web_resources/lgrb")#end##
#end

This essentially puts a binding called $containingtemplate available to each contained snippet. If a page has come along and set the binding then the value is set, and it’s a different id from the id of the snippet. If it’s not been set then the snippet is being previewed alone.

Then it also sets a default $rxs_navbase should the binding in the template not have found a value from the publishing variables.

After that, we can contain a snippet thus:

<body class="landing generic">
	#if(!$iscontained)
	<div class="generic-cols-3 clear">
	<div class="generic-col-1">
	#end
	<div class="feature-txt-box tint-9">
		<div class="open-quote"> </div> 
			<div class="quote-content tint-9"> 
				<p>#field("longcallout")</p>
				<p class="author">#field_if_set("" "displaytitle" "" ) 
				#field_if_set(", <br/>" "linktitle" "" )</p>
			</div> 
		<div class="close-quote"> </div> 
    </div>
	#if(!$iscontained)
	</div>
	</div>
	#end
  </body>

Also, I’ve put my call to render stylesheets in a macro so I just call the same macro for every page/snippet so it only needs to be changed once.

4

Thanks so much for your reply. I will give it a try.

Matt