So here is today's challenge and I thought I put it out to the community first in case there is a component about already that can achieve this.
I have a site that has a sidebar a Multi-Node Tree Picker property on all nodes to which any number of panels/banners can be added to and which cascade down to child pages. On certain pages the site editors may want to exclude some of the parent sidebar items from displaying on a specified node.
Normally I would just inherit from parent nodes unless the current node had explicit values set for the side bar and in that situation would replace the entire sidebar however the requirements are slightly more specific in this case.
My original plan was to use the XPath Checkboxbox datatype to list out parent MNTP selections and allow them to be selected and excluded but I don't think I can *bend* the datatype to output the MNTP Nodes from a parent.
Any ideas or alternative approaches to *disconnect* specific parent panels/banners or am I making this more complicated than it needs to be?
Sure thing. It's straight-forward, once you've got your head around it, (I know, easier said than done!)
The key part is the inner XPath query:
$ancestorOrSelf/parent::*[@isDoc]/mntp/*/nodeId
The "$ancestorOrSelf" parameter is a special case we use within uQuery ... It would try to get the nearest published page to the current page/node (and there I've just found a fault with my original answer ... I'll revise it at the end of this reply)
It then gets the "nodeId" values from the MNTP.
The outer XPath query then uses those "nodeId" values:
descendant::*[@isDoc and @id = "nodeIds"]
...
OK, so I found an issue with my original answer, here's a revised version:
descendant::*[@isDoc and @id = $ancestorOrSelf/ancestor-or-self::*[@isDoc and mntp/*/nodeId][1]/mntp/*/nodeId]
This would now work from an unpublished page - previously it would try to locate the parent of the nearest ancestor.
Checkbox List of Parent MNTP Items
So here is today's challenge and I thought I put it out to the community first in case there is a component about already that can achieve this.
I have a site that has a sidebar a Multi-Node Tree Picker property on all nodes to which any number of panels/banners can be added to and which cascade down to child pages. On certain pages the site editors may want to exclude some of the parent sidebar items from displaying on a specified node.
Normally I would just inherit from parent nodes unless the current node had explicit values set for the side bar and in that situation would replace the entire sidebar however the requirements are slightly more specific in this case.
My original plan was to use the XPath Checkboxbox datatype to list out parent MNTP selections and allow them to be selected and excluded but I don't think I can *bend* the datatype to output the MNTP Nodes from a parent.
Any ideas or alternative approaches to *disconnect* specific parent panels/banners or am I making this more complicated than it needs to be?
TIA, Simon
Hi Simon,
Challenge accepted. The XPath CheckBoxList will be able to do this, does require some advanced XPath to make it work though.
The MNTP will need to use XML for it's data - it's possible that CSV could be used, but the XPath would be much difficult.
Create an XPath CheckBoxList with the following XPath Expression:
The "mntp" part would be the property alias of your MNTP field.
Cheers, Lee.
Lee you rock! Thanks, I might have to get you to explain that XPath to me or break it down because whilst it works I don't understand why :)
Sure thing. It's straight-forward, once you've got your head around it, (I know, easier said than done!)
The key part is the inner XPath query:
The "$ancestorOrSelf" parameter is a special case we use within uQuery ... It would try to get the nearest published page to the current page/node (and there I've just found a fault with my original answer ... I'll revise it at the end of this reply)
It then gets the "nodeId" values from the MNTP.
The outer XPath query then uses those "nodeId" values:
descendant::*[@isDoc and @id = "nodeIds"]...
OK, so I found an issue with my original answer, here's a revised version:
This would now work from an unpublished page - previously it would try to locate the parent of the nearest ancestor.
Cheers, Lee.
Perfect - thanks for the explanation as well as I would never have got to that solution!
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