Posted on February 2nd, 2009%
Although I was able to find some documentation and samples (mostly through the unit tests) of how to use a ViewComponent with the Spark view engine, details were sketchy, so I’ll share some quick tips to those who are scratching their heads as I was.
Using a block ViewComponent
Support for block view components is pretty evident in Spark, as shown in the following example, which illustrates the use of the AuthenticatedContent view component.
<authenticatedcontent>
<logged>
This content is shown when the user is logged in.
</logged>
<notlogged>
This content is shown when the user is NOT logged in.
</notlogged>
</authenticatedcontent>
Using the CaptureFor ViewComponent
The CaptureFor component is one useful way to allow a sub-view to “inject” data into a layout. I use this all the time to allow a rescue page to change the page title when an error occurs.
On your layout page, you inject the page title as you normally would (so a controller can inject it via the property bag).
<title>ComputerSims Baseball: $!{ViewData["PageTitle"]}</title>
In the view, the . . .
→ Read More: Using MonoRail ViewComponents with the Spark view engine
Posted on January 29th, 2009%
Yesterday, I wrote about the coolness of The Spark view engine (and a brief history of web programming). As I explore more, I’ll share my experiences here in hope that it shortens other people’s learning curve.
Today’s topic is the basics: writing a simple layout.
Spark offers full support for layouts and views. As with any other view engine, the file extension (by default, .spark) of both your layout and view files must match.
A simple layout looks like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>A simple layout</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>A simple layout</h1>
<use content="view" />
</body>
</html>
The only thing that isn’t HTML is the <use content=”view” /> tag. This tag denotes where in the layout (master template) to embed the content from your view. In NVelocity, we used ${ChildContent} declaration in NVelocity, or the ${ChildOutput} declaration in Brail. Yes, it’s that simple.
Often times, we want to inject some view data into our layout, such as the page title. Let’s say our controller was sending a PageTitle to the view:
public void . . .
→ Read More: Simple layouts and views with Spark and MonoRail
Posted on January 28th, 2009%
I should have gone to bed early last night (after all, I did wake up at 4:30AM yesterday morning). Unfortunately, a spark of inspiration quite literally kept me up later than normal sleep cycles dictate… but what a spark it was.
To understand the spark, you have to understand my history of server-side web programming.
In the beginning
My first experience with server-side web programming was with Allaire ColdFusion some ten years ago. What was great about ColdFusion is its use of a tag-based scripting language, CFML, as illustrated below.
<cfset value = “Hello” />
<cfoutput>
#value# Bob!
</cfoutput>
After ColdFusion, I came across what is now known as “Classic ASP” – and my web code looked less and less like HTML.
<% value = “Hello” %>
<%= value %> Bob!
Classic ASP felt more like programming, less like web programming. Quite accurately, it was web programming via scripting. I missed the tag-based syntax of ColdFusion.
Then there was ASP.Net, which at first glance . . .
→ Read More: The Spark View Engine (and a brief history of web programming)
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