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Specifiying Images/CSS/JS in extensions/modules
 
Newism
Posted: 20 September 2008 04:36 AM   [ Ignore ]  
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Hey guys,

I was testing some of my extension code and ran into a problem. How do you reference images for a module/extension in the CP?

So far I have tried:

'" . $PREFS->ini('site_url') . $PREFS->ini('system_folder') . "/extensions/lg_twitter_ext/bg.png'

Fails when you browse to a secondary msm site

'/" . $PREFS->ini('system_folder') . "/extensions/lg_twitter_ext/bg.png'

Fails when the user has EE installed in a sub folder

The only reliable way seems to be throwing all the files in a new folder in the themes directory as the user has to type this in manually.

I have seen Solspace call another CP page that returns the JS/CSS but this seems like a bit of overkill.

Any ideas?
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Leevi Graham
Posted: 20 September 2008 04:37 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]  
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I guess I should have posted that under my name not the company smile

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ben c
Posted: 20 September 2008 05:10 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]  
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have you tried with the constants PATH_EXT and PATH_MOD?

PATH_EXT.‘lg_twitter_ext/bg.png’

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 20 September 2008 05:18 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]  
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PATH_EXT and PATH_MOD print out the system path… not a url :(

PATH_EXT = /Users/Leevi/Sites/Internal/ee.1.6.4-20080710/ee-admin/extensions/

So no good :(

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ben c
Posted: 20 September 2008 05:39 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]  
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what about using $PREFS->ini(‘cp_url’) and removing the index.php?

$url = str_replace('index.php', '', $PREFS->ini('cp_url', false));

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 20 September 2008 06:10 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]  
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@Ben:

The issue with that is that people may be masking their control panel index page. So they could be using admin.php inside a different folder.

I’m starting to think this is one of those 80-20 situations.

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ben c
Posted: 20 September 2008 06:26 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]  
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it may well be. good luck!

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Victor Gutierrez
Posted: 20 September 2008 06:54 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]  
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Well typically i do this:

$this->lib_path        = $PREFS->ini('site_url', TRUE).$PREFS->ini('system_folder', TRUE).'modules/'.$this->module_name.'/lib/';

Even if people mask their CP it will still work since the original CP url is always accessible.
Or am i wrong?

I guess that’s why Solspace went for the “themes” solution, since that always works..

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 20 September 2008 07:03 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]  
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Victor Gutierrez - 20 September 2008 06:54 AM

Well typically i do this:

$this->lib_path        = $PREFS->ini('site_url', TRUE).$PREFS->ini('system_folder', TRUE).'modules/'.$this->module_name.'/lib/';

Even if people mask their CP it will still work since the original CP url is always accessible.
Or am i wrong?

I guess that’s why Solspace went for the “themes” solution, since that always works..

The issue with that approach is that a msm site has a different site url which doesn’t contain the EE installation. :( So the assets are 404

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 21 September 2008 05:08 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 9 ]  
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Bump… Do any Ellislab developers have any suggestions? smile

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Mark Bowen
Posted: 21 September 2008 05:11 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 10 ]  
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Just out of interest is there no way of finding the path of your extension itself and then working back from there?

Just a thought though.

Best wishes,

Mark

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 21 September 2008 05:21 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 11 ]  
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I can find the server path… not sure if I can turn that into a url… checking the dev docs now smile

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 21 September 2008 06:08 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 12 ]  
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Ok answering my own post here but I think the best way to reference images and scripts for extensions and modules is to:

1. create a new folder in the /themes/cp_themes/default/ directory
2. put all your images / css / js in there
3. build the url:

$PREFS->ini('theme_folder_url', 1) . "cp_themes/".$PREFS->ini('cp_theme')."/lg_twitter/admin.js"

This way your extension can be tweaked for custom cp themes in the future. Seems ok and is fail proof on msm sites and masked CPs

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Robin Sowell
Posted: 22 September 2008 09:17 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 13 ]  
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Seems reasonable from here.  I took a look- Tag is using the THEME_FOLDER constant, which is defined in core.system.php

// ----------------------------------------------
//  Theme Paths
// ----------------------------------------------

    if ($PREFS->ini('theme_folder_path') !== FALSE && $PREFS->ini('theme_folder_path') != '')
    {
        $theme_path = preg_replace("#/+#", "/", $PREFS->ini('theme_folder_path').'/');
    }
    else
    {
           $theme_path = substr(PATH, 0, - strlen($PREFS->ini('system_folder').'/')).'themes/';
        $theme_path = preg_replace("#/+#", "/", $theme_path);
    }
    
    define('PATH_THEMES',         $theme_path);
    define('PATH_SITE_THEMES',    PATH_THEMES.'site_themes/');
    define('PATH_MBR_THEMES',    PATH_THEMES.'profile_themes/');
    define('PATH_CP_IMG',         $PREFS->ini('theme_folder_url', 1).'cp_global_images/');
    
    if (REQ == 'CP')
    {
        define('PATH_CP_THEME', PATH_THEMES.'cp_themes/');
    }
    
    unset($theme_path);


But I’m not dead sure what the preferred approach is.  Took a look at the file upload button in publish, it’s using

/** --------------------------------
        /**  Upload link        
        /** --------------------------------*/
        
        $up_img = '<img src="'.PATH_CP_IMG.'upload_file.gif" border="0"  width="16" height="16">line('file_upload').'" />';


I’m going to shift this down to ‘Modules’ and give the crew a bump on it.

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 22 September 2008 03:37 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 14 ]  
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Hey Robin,

Thanks for your input. Using the PATH_CP_IMG variable and the $PREFS->ini(‘theme_folder_url’, 1) method is the only foolproof way I have found so far.

Honestly its not too much extra time to implememnt but it does mean that the installation has a couple of extra steps. Unfortunatley sometimes that’s all it takes to confuse someone.

Cheers

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Wizz
Posted: 28 October 2008 04:08 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 15 ]  
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I was wondering if anyone gave this some extra thought (preferably the developers at EllisLab)?

The ideal situation would be to have a directory called css/img/js in your module directory to simplify installation, but how does one get the path to that folder in a foolproof way? I intend to use this module I’m developing myself, but making things easier is never a bad thing…

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 28 October 2008 04:37 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 16 ]  
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Wizz - 28 October 2008 04:08 PM

I was wondering if anyone gave this some extra thought (preferably the developers at EllisLab)?

The ideal situation would be to have a directory called css/img/js in your module directory to simplify installation, but how does one get the path to that folder in a foolproof way? I intend to use this module I’m developing myself, but making things easier is never a bad thing…

There is no fool proof way unless you use the themes directory. I have rebuilt most of my extensions using this technique and it works well.

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Wizz
Posted: 28 October 2008 05:02 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 17 ]  
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Hmmm… I might have found a way to include css and js files in the module directory.

$DSP->body .= '<style type="text/css">'.$DSP->file_open(PATH_MOD.'/'.$this->module_name'/css/cp.css').'</style>';


Same goes for js-files…

Any thoughts on this?

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Leevi Graham
Posted: 28 October 2008 05:32 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 18 ]  
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The main issue with that approach is that the pages will be much bigger to download and the browser cannot cache the resource.

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