First off I'm not sure that's the proper title for this question but hopefully I'll do a better job trying to explain what I need to accomplish.
Introduction
What I want to do is load the FAQ information that is relative to the page I'm on. So say I'm on the page www.domain.com/items/index, I want to load the FAQ information that describe what can be done on this page and what options are available... etc. Then, the user rolls over a search bar, I want to display (on the side of a page) a short text that describes the search box and how it works (like telling them you could search by keywords or for a specific item or... etc). And it goes like that for the rest of the pages and stuff on those pages.
Brainstorming
Ok so what I have in mind so far, and which I'm not sure of (hence this is why I'm posting the question) is as follows:
In the database, create two tables: PageFAQ and ElementFAQ where an ElementFAQ is a child of PageFAQ. The reason why I thought about this is so I would load the PageFAQ and all ElementFAQ all together and dump them into the page and hide them.
At this point, I would only display the summary text of the PageFAQ which tells the user more about the page and some of the available options.
Now, in order to load the correct ElementFAQ, some steps should be taken on the server and client side:
Make sure the Id's/Names of the ElementFAQ's in the database match those of the hidden divs that were dumped into the page previously (when the PageFAQ relative to the page was loaded)
When the user rolls over an element (say the search bar), I would use jQuery to search for a div with id faq_searchBar and display its innerHTML inside the FAQ side box.
Problem
All what is mentioned above should theoretically work. But I can't get my mind around how to map between the "page" I'm currently viewing and the PageFAQ entry in the database. As you know, there aren't really pages in ASP.NET MVC, there are only routes. So is there some way I could use route data to fetch the needed PageFAQ? Or should I use the query string? Or is there a better way of doing this all together, preferably something that does not use magic strings in the first place.
UPDATE:
Would it be too much overhead loading the PageFAQ and all its ElementFAQ children and dump them into the page as hidden divs? Or would it be a better idea to load them via AJAX when the user rolls over the element?
Your suggestions are most welcome.
"page" I'm currently viewing
string currentAction = RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");
string currentController = RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller");
string id = CalculateId(currentAction, currentController);
PageFAQ pageFAQ = Repository.GetFAQ(id);
...
The CalculateId could simply associate the current controller and action to the corresponding id in the database or directly add those columns in your database and then query:
string currentAction = RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");
string currentController = RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller");
PageFAQ pageFAQ = Repository.GetFAQ(currentAction, currentController);
Related
I am fairly new to Umbraco and I am wondering where I should put pieces of random data.
I have a lot of experience with Sitecore, used it for several years, I am certified etc etc. But now I have to build something with Umbraco. At a first glance Umbraco looks inferior to Sitecore in every way, but I might be wrong about that.
So what I am wondering is, where should I put non-browsable pieces of data that are visible on several places throughout the website? I'd like to create data items in Umbraco for things like Testimonials, Offices? I'd like to have a centralized place in Umbraco where they can be maintained and reference them from a page node. But the way it looks now is that everything has to be on the page node. Which is sort ok, for your average family webpage.
Could someone please shed some light on this?
You could create another node under the man content and call it site settings and store them there that way all pages under the home page are just visible pages on the front end and all data nodes are in a separate area.
There is one property in umbraco that you can add to document types and name it "umbracoNaviHide" (for alias, the name can be anything). This allows wires in automatically to the .IsVisible() method.
var children = Model.Content.Children.Where(x => x.IsVisible());
I find this situation to be very frequent, think of slideshows. When I make an Umbraco website, under my root node I normalle havea Slideshow document type (that contains slides) and I programmatically traverse those to build the slideshow on the home page for example. This Slideshow document has that "umbracoNaviHide" property and I skip it from my menus either using the .IsVisible() method or by manually skipping specific document types.
var menuItems = Model.Content.Children.Where(x => x.DocumentTypeAlias != "Slideshow" && x.DocumentTypeAlias != "Search");
On the other hand, if you are looking for "labels", you can look at "Dictionnary" items under the "Settings" tab.
To directly answer your questions, I reccomend putting non-browsable pieces of data as children of the relevant browsable content node. (But there are other valid ways to do this, it really is up to you and what's best for your content editors.)
Hope this helps.
My application feature a "main" page where most of the action happens: There are tags for filtering and a list of results in a (paginated) table, plus the possibility to select some or all results in a "shopping cart".
This page has to keep track of a whole lot of things: what tags are selected, what items are selected, and how the result table is sorted and what page it's on. Everything has to persist, so if I select a new tag, the page must partially reload but remember everything (sorting, what's selected).
Right now I'm handling everything with parameters, and for each action taken on the page, all links (select a tag/item, change page, sort table) are updated to include previous parameters + the relevant new addition. This works, obviously, but it feels kind of inefficient, as I have to reload more of the page than I want to. How is this situation normally handled? I can't find that much info on google at all, but it doesn't feel like a particularly uncommon case.
tl;dr: How to best make sure all links (to the same page) always include everything previously selected + the new action. There are a lot of links (one per tag to select/deselect, one per result item to select/deselect, one per sort option, one per page)
There are five ways to do that:
Method 1: By parameters
You mentioned this. I never think of this as it's too troublesome. Anyway it's still a solution for very simple case.
Method 2: By cookie
Save the settings to a cookie and read the cookie in controller to arrange layout settings.
Method 3: By LocalStorage
Similar to cookie but allows more space.
Method 4: By Session
If you are using ActiveRecord to save session, this could be the best solution for pure pages loading. Save the user preferences into session and load it in next layout.
Method 5: Use Ajax
This is the best solution IMO. Instead of whole page loading, use Ajax to refresh/retrieve changes you need. Using together with above method, a user can even continue his last preferences. This is the most powerful and should be applicable to your case which looks like a web app than a website.
Have you tried creating model for all those attributes? and just always load the 'latest' when on the page load, if you dont need them you can always have a flag for that session.
I want to save the HTML tags of whole page that is going to (render) client side in the database table with a unique id so next time I can fetch that page directly from database with id and without any complicate logic execution. All this without any URL means I don't want to pass a URL to any method that will get the HTML tag. I want to get HTML tags before even rendering the page because I have some status system once status changed that URL will not work.
Sorry if my question is not clear, but I tried to mention all details. I simply want HTML tag of my view before sending it to client so that I can save those tags with a unique id in database table and next time I can just fetch those tags from the database table with that unique id. My need is that the view contains many complex queries that I don't want to run each time.
It's a kind of certificate in that once it is printed, it cannot be changed, it can only be viewed by that unique ID in a faster way.
What you want to do is called output caching, use that instead.
If you need to save the HTML output, you need to add an action filter and intercept the Result and save the text in database.
I have a search page which finds candidates.
From this page you can click view to find more information about the candidate.
When on the candidate view you can click edit or do a number of other actions which would return you too the candidates view.
My problem is from the candidates view I need to add a button to go back to the search results.
I originally thought of using a JS button with history -1 but because the user can do other action from inside the view this won't work.
I am still quite new to rails so not sure of my options... I am thinking some sort of caching of the results and then maybe a hidden field to keep track of the location of the cache(don't think this is the best solution as keeping track of the hidden value could get abit messy!)
Thanks, Alex
I would probably use a session variable to store this information.
First, make sure your form that posts to the search page is a GET operation, this way the search details are in your query string. Then in your search action, you can grab the request URL and store it in the session:
session[:search_results] = request.url
Now in your view for the results, you can do your "Back to search results" like this:
link_to "Back to search results", session[:search_results]
You have a couple of options:
Cache the results, as you've suggested. The potential downsides to this are that it takes memory, and if new valid records get added, you won't see them. You could store the cache in Session, or in the database (though in the latter case, you don't gain much).
I'd suggest just remembering the last search term, either in session or using hidden fields. You end up re-running the query when you go to the search results page, but in a properly indexed DB, that shouldn't be a big deal.
Good luck!
You can include the parameters for the query on the subpage. Eg.: /foo/search?q=stuff displays search result. Each result then has a link like /foo/:id?q=stuff. And on the subpage, you will have the parameter available to link back to the main page.
This solution doesn't use any server side state, which is generally accepted as the better way to build web applications. Not only does it mean that you browser will behave as expected, with respect to bookmarks, multiple tabs etc., but it also ensures that proper caching can be employed. Further, it lowers the complexity of your application, making it easier to debug and extend.
You could put the search results in a "search_results" table keyed by the user id. Then when the user hits the page, always load from a query on that table.
If anybody does come across this page and you need a button that goes back to the previous page and still display those search results (just like the google chrome button), just use :back.....
<%= link_to(image_tag("back.svg"), :back, :class => 'back_btn') %>
I have a detail page that gets called from various places and has a nice readable url like
"www.mypage.com/product/best-product-ever".
The calling pages (list of products) have a more complex url like:
"www.mypage.com/offers/category/electronic/page/1/filter/manufacturer/sony/sort/price" and
"www.mypage.com/bestseller/this-week".
How can I make a backlink from the detailpage to the calling product list?
I cannot use javascript
I don't want to have the calling page in the URL, because it gets to long
I really want links between pages, no http-post
I cannot use Sessionstate
EDIT:
Sessionstate is ruled out, because if there are 2 Windows open, then they would share the same "Back" page information.
Like Lee said, use the referrer value:
Back
If you don't want the URL in the link because it's too long, try running some sort of simple compression algorithm over the URL, display the compressed data as unicode text and then append the compressed URL as a parameter to a redirect page, e.g:
Back
What about using the referrer header value?
Here's a crazy idea that will require a fair but of work and may not be healthy for performance (depending on your users).. but here we go:
Create a repository for caching 'ListResults' (and wire it to persist to the DB of you like.. or just leave it in memory on the server).
In short what this Repo can do is store a ListResult which will include everything to persist the state of the current view of the list any given user is looking at. This might include routes and other values.. but essentially everything that is needed to redirect back to that specific page of the filtered and sorted list.
As the ListResult item is added to the repo a small unique hash/key is generated that will be url friendly - something like this "k29shjk4" - it is added to the item along with a datetime stamp.
ListResults are only persisted from the moment a list gets off the default view (ie. no filtering, sorting and Page 1) - this will help in a small way for performance.
A ListResult item may never actually get used but all detail actionlinks on the particular list view have the ListResult.Key hash value added to the route. So yes, it might end up as a querystring but it will be short (url friendly) and if you wanna mess with routes more, you can tidy it up further.
For navigation "back" to the list, you may need a new small controller which accepts simply the ListResult.Key hash value and redirects/re-creates the state of the list view (paging, filtering and sorting included) from the lookup in the repo.
So we have met the requirements so far: no calling page in the url (in the sense that its not the whole page - just a hash lookup of it); no POSTing, no sessions, no js.
To stop the ListResult repo from getting to big (and dangerous: if you persist it to the DB), you can use a ASP.NET background service to periodically prune the 'old' routes by way of the timestamp.. and 'extend' the life of routes that are continuously being used by adding time to the stamp of a ListResult item when it's requested via the new controller. No need to persist a route indefinitely coz if a user wants a permalink to a list view, they can bookmark the long list route itself.
hope this helps somehow
Do you have a cookie?
If so, you can put it in there, or use it to create your own session state.
I think this is more like a "Back to results" then a generic "<< back" link, because you would expect the generic back link to return to the genetic list, not the heavily filtered list you described, right?
I don't know if this falls into your "no post" condition, but the only option I can see is having the Detail action be POST-only ([AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]) and include another parameter like string fullRoute which is converted to the 'link' on the detail page for "Back to results". Overload the Detail action missing the fullRoute param and have the overloaded action be a GET action so that the POST fullRoute value is not required (for when users are ok with the 'generic' "Back" link). This should serve both 'generic' GET requests to the Detail page and the POST request which will include the specific "Back to results" link for the filtered list.