Master-Detail: how to add a command instead of a detail page - xamarin.forms

I have a Xamarin.Forms app with FreshMvvm. I am trying to use Master-Detail architecture, like this:
var masterDetailNav = new FreshMasterDetailNavigationContainer();
masterDetailNav.Init("Menu");
masterDetailNav.AddPage<AboutPageModel>("About", null);
masterDetailNav.AddPage<PageModels.CoverageCalculator.CoverageCalculatorPageModel>("Coverage Calculator", null);
MainPage = masterDetailNav;
This is good, but I need to add navigation elements that would do something OTHER than opening detail pages. E.g. I may need to open some website in the browser or make a call etc. Is it doable, and if so, how?

Related

Print Friendly Page

So I would like to be able to have a print button for entries in our database so users can print an entry via a print friendly "form".
My thought was to create a separate page, add labels and have those labels pull the relevant information.
I know I can add the open widget information via this code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showPage(app.pages.TestPrint);
But I'm running into a few problems:
I can't get the page to open in a new window. Is this possible?
window.open(app.pages.TestPrint);
Just gives me a blank page. Does the browser lose the widget source once the new window opens?
I can't get the print option (either onClick or onDataLoad) to print JUST the image (or widget). I run
window.print();
And it includes headers + scroll bars. Do I need to be running a client side script instead?
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
To get exactly what you'd want you'd have to do a lot of work.
Here is my suggested, simpler answer:
Don't open up a new tab. If you use showPage like you mention, and provide a "back" button on the page to go back to where you were, you'll get pretty much everything you need. If you don't want the back to show up when you print, then you can setVisibility(false) on the button before you print, then print, then setVisibility(true).
I'll give a quick summary of how you could do this with a new tab, but it's pretty involved so I can't go into details without trying it myself. The basic idea, is you want to open the page with a full URL, just like a user was navigating to it.
You can use #TestPrint to indicate which page you want to load. You also need the URL of your application, which as far as I can remember is only available in a server-side script using the Apps Script method: ScriptApp.getService().getUrl(). On top of this, you'll probably need to pass in the key so that your page knows what data to load.
So given this, you need to assemble a url by calling a server script, then appending the key property to it. In the end you want a url something like:
https://www.script.google.com/yourappaddress#TestPage?key=keyOfYourModel.
Then on TestPage you need to read the key, and load data for that key. (You can read the key using google.script.url).
Alternatively, I think there are some tricks you can play by opening a blank window and then writing directly to its DOM, but I've never tried that, and since Apps Script runs inside an iframe I'm not sure if it's possible. If I get a chance I'll play with it and update this answer, but for your own reference you could look here: create html page and print to new tab in javascript
I'm imagining something like that, except that your page an write it's html content. Something like:
var winPrint = window.open('', '_blank', 'left=0,top=0,width=800,height=600,toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,status=0');
winPrint.document.write(app.pages.TestPage.getElement().innerHTML);
winPrint.document.close();
winPrint.focus();
winPrint.print();
winPrint.close();
Hope one of those three options helps :)
So here is what I ended up doing. It isn't elegant, but it works.
I added a Print Button to a Page Fragment that pops up when a user edits a database entry.
Database Edit Button code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showDialog(app.pageFragments.FragmentName);
That Print Button goes to a different (full) Page and closes the Fragment.
Print Button Code:
app.datasources.ModelName.selectKey(widget.datasource.item._key);
app.showPage(app.pages.ModelName_Print);
app.closeDialog();
I made sure to make the new Print Page was small enough so that Chrome fits it properly into a 8.5 x 11" page (728x975).
I then created a Panel that fills the page and populated the page with Labels
#datasource.item.FieldName
I then put the following into the onDataLoad for the Panel
window.print();
So now when the user presses the Print Button in the Fragment they are taken to this new page and after the data loads they automatically get a print dialog.
The only downside is that after printing the user has to use a back button I added to return to the database page.
1.
As far as I know, you cannot combine window.open with app.pages.*, because
window.open would require url parameter at least, while app.pages.* is essentially an internal routing mechanism provided by App Maker, and it returns page object back, suitable for for switching between pages, or opening dialogs.
2.
You would probably need to style your page first, so like it includes things you would like to have printed out. To do so please use #media print
ex: We have a button on the page and would like to hide it from print page
#media print {
.app-NewPage-Button1 {
display : none;
}
}
Hope it helps.
1. Here is how it is done, in a pop up window, without messing up the current page (client script):
function print(widget, title){
var content=widget.getElement().innerHTML;
var win = window.open('', 'printWindow', 'height=600,width=800');
win.document.write('<head><title>'+title+'/title></head>');
win.document.write('<body>'+content+'</body>');
win.document.close();
win.focus();
win.print();
win.close();
}
and the onclick handler for the button is:
print(widget.root.descendants.PageFragment1, 'test');
In this example, PageFragment1 is a page fragment on the current page, hidden by adding a style with namehidden with definition .hidden{display:none;} (this is different than visible which in App Maker seems to remove the item from the DOM). Works perfectly...
2. You cannot open pages from the app in another tab. In principle something like this would do it:
var w=window.parent.parent;
w.open(w.location.protocol+'//'+w.location.host+w.location.pathname+'#PrintPage', '_blank');
But since the app is running in frame nested two deep from the launching page, and with a different origin, you will not be able to access the url that you need (the above code results in a cross origin frame access error). So you would have to hard code the URL, which changes at deployment, so it gets ugly very fast. Not that you want to anyway, the load time of an app should discourage you from wanting to do that anyway.

Default.ctp and a totally different login page

Within my default.ctp page I keep navigational and structural content applicable to the entire application. For example menu structures and a column based CSS. I would like to change my login page, however, to look entirely different (no menu, no columns, etc)
Is there a way to load a separate ctp file for a single URL only? e.g. /plugin/controller/login
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/views.html
You can create a new layout for the login page and for that controller/action change the layout name
$this->layout = 'login';
There are two ways. First, you create your new layout file, à la login.ctp inside your View/Layout folder.
Next, in your login action, at the top you can write $this->layout = "login";. The other way you can do it is when you render the view, at the end of your action method, like this: $this->render('actionName', 'login');

How navigate to next page using AJAX in MVC4?

I don't have so much experience using AJAX in a MVC application, in fact is my first facing. Please check the below image and note the rectangles.
The image is just an example that I took from internet.
The biggest rectangle is a partial view in my application and I have to render it when the user press Continue or Continuar button. The application should replace the current view for another without refresh the page.
This is the code which I'm testing, note first that I'm passing the first element of a list, but when the user press the button, render the view with the next element index = 2.
public ActionResult DoTest()
{
if (!Request.IsAjaxRequest())
{ }
List<Worksheet> worksheets = new List<Worksheet>()
{
new Worksheet("Hoja 1", ...),
new Worksheet("Hoja 2", ...)
};
return View(worksheets[0]);
}
Can orient me a little bit to know how to implement this feature? I just know that I need to use Ajax.
Have a look through the tutorials and examples here. There's plenty of other material around on the web with information on this subject.
There are many different ways you can achieve this. One way would be to write a custom paging Helper (HtmlHelper) that accepts new content upon the post event. You can view all about Helpers here : Custom HTML Helpers
Another way could be to use partial page rendering to achieve the partial page update upon post event.
If I was you I would combine a partial view with a jquery function to update the content. You can view some help on that here: Change dive content with Jquery

MvvmCross UINavigationController customise navigationBar

Further to my experiences with MvvmCross, I've managed to build an app for iPhone which starts with a TabBarController. I can also successfully navigate within each tab to deeper levels. The problems start when I want to customise the navigationBar on the deeper levels - setting the backButton colours, etc. The code I use for navigation is the standard viewModel code -
this.RequestNavigate<InJourneyViewModel>();
…which works fine, but I can't do anything to the navigated-to view's navBar, other than set its title.
Any thoughts or advice appreciated!
I think it might help if you posted some more of your code that is failing.
My suspicion is that the problem is a more generic Cocoa, MonoTouch and/or backbarbutton problem.
I've just played with the ViewDidLoad code in MapView.cs in https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross/tree/master/Sample%20-%20CirriousConference/Cirrious.Conference.UI.Touch
At the end of this, I was able to add some bar button changes like:
var leftButton = new UIBarButtonItem("FooBar", UIBarButtonItemStyle.Bordered, null);
leftButton.TintColor = UIColor.Green;
NavigationItem.SetLeftBarButtonItem(leftButton, false);
NavigationItem.RightBarButtonItem.TintColor = UIColor.Red;
Which resulted in:
Alternatively, by placing code in the WelcomeView:
var leftButton = new UIBarButtonItem("FooBar", UIBarButtonItemStyle.Bordered, null);
leftButton.TintColor = UIColor.Green;
NavigationItem.BackBarButton = leftButton;
Then I succeed in achieving:
Alternatively, by using code like:
UIBarButtonItem.AppearanceWhenContainedIn(typeof(UINavigationBar)).TintColor = UIColor.Blue;
Then this enabled me to customise all the navigation bar buttons like:
At one point, I also managed to achieve:
... but sadly I've genuinely no idea which code combo gave me that! If your problem is with back buttons in particular, then I think you will need to dig around other questions and/or post some code and hope someone can help - there's lots of posts about how to do this, but I can't quite figure out what they all mean for MonoTouch - e.g. Separate title in NavigationBar and navigation buttons

How to embed "Share on Facebook" button into Flex application?

I'm trying to duplicate the behaviour of the "Share on Facebook" button from Youtube. Basically, inside a Flex app I'll have a button and when I click it I want a popup that enables me to post something on the wall.
While it is possible to make a call to javascript to open the pop-up I want to be able to set the images and the text of my posting.
Do you know how I could set the images or text as a paramter to the sharer window?
Thank you!
This is fairly straightforward to do. Youtube uses the Facebook API which pops up a new window (Info on Facebook sharer API).
To do this in flex,
Create a button that onClick will call a javascript method, ExternalInterface.call("fbLink", "www.yahoo.com");
In your HTML file (most likely index.template.html) add the JavaScript method, fbLink which does the following:
function fbLink(url) {
window.popup("http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=" + url, {height:440, width:620, scrollbars:true})
}
Now when a user clicks on the button they will be sharing the link "yahoo.com" with facebook account.
as I understood you asking for some help in accessing js popup in html page of facebook share button, so you should use ExternalInterface in this casa and access needed DOM node using getElementById function in your js interface.
In other case I want propose you to read another one way http://www.riaxe.com/blog/flex/publish-into-facebook-wall-from-flex/
It seems that you want to have a button on the flash application and once clicked it opens the facebook page that shares the video/image that pertains to the clicked button. What you want to do is simply create a button that on click opens a new website to facebook using their share api which has the following format:
var facebookShare:String = "http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=' + encodedVideoLink + '&t='+ encodedVideoText";
Where the u parameter stands for the link that you wish to share, and the t parameter stands for the title of the piece that you want to share, whether it be a picture or video.
You want to add an event listener on MouseEvent.CLICK that has as its callback function a method that handles the opening of the facebook page passing the facebookShare variable as shown above. To open another page on your browser you can use this AS3 Class called URLNavigator: http://www.danishmetal.dk/project/source/com/zorked/URLNavigator.as
To sum it up, something along these lines would do:
var facebookShare:String = "http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=' + encodedVideoLink + '&t='+ encodedVideoText";
facebookButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, this._goToUrl(facebookShare));
private function _goToUrl(link:String):Function {
var window:String = "_blank",
feats = "",
thisOverlay:Object = this; // to not lose scope when returning a func
return function (e:MouseEvent):void {
trace("Opening link to:"+link);
try { URLNavigator.ChangePage(link, window, feats); }
catch (e:Error) { trace("error launching "+link+" in "+window+" with feature set "+feats); }
}
}
I hope that helps. If you have questions regarding the code please let me know.

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