{"id":1142,"date":"2010-11-12T16:34:52","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T20:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fgiasson.com\/blog\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2011-09-14T11:14:54","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T15:14:54","slug":"building-construct-templates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fgiasson.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/11\/12\/building-construct-templates\/","title":{"rendered":"Building conStruct Templates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
The templating engine in conStruct<\/a>is one of the older modules that has been developed. In fact, it was probably more than two years ago. However, it has never been documented…Until now!<\/em><\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It is nice to have a framework (structWSF<\/a>) that lets you ingest, manage, analyze and publish structured, semi-structured and unstructured data using a set of web service endpoints. However, it would be even nicer to have a user interface to interact with that system. It is what conStruct is: a user interface to structWSF endpoints.<\/p>\n

But it would be even nicer to have a way to personalize the structWSF data presented to users via conStruct: it is what the conStruct templates are all about.<\/p>\n

The only remaining problem was for someone new to conStruct to know how to create these templates.<\/p>\n

Quick Introduction to conStruct Templates<\/h3>\n

conStruct templates are used to create different HTML page layouts to present information about instance records depending on their type. The present design utilizes Smarty as the baseline templating framework to create these templates. The only thing we added to it is a new API that lets template designers have access to the instance record(s) description(s). Think of it as an API to manipulate the information that will be displayed in the HTML page.<\/p>\n

The general idea is that depending on the type of the instance record you want to display information about, you will want your system to display the information you have about that instance record differently depending on the type of that instance record. For example, if you want to present information about a neighborhood<\/em>, the information will be displayed differently than if you want to present information about a person<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By using Smarty and the API extension created for conStruct, template designers are able to create different layouts to display things differently depending on the type of the records being viewed by the users of the system. Designers will also be able to make their template adaptive depending on how the records are described. As we know, not all persons are described the same way!<\/p>\n

Once a template designer gets used to this system, these presentation templates for instance records become an effective way to present information to users, in all different ways, by leveraging the structure of the information it conveys.<\/p>\n

Some Examples<\/h3>\n

Here are some examples of templated pages for different kind of instances. These should show you how different they can be, and how they can integrate external tools such as Flash movies, YouTube videos and uses external JavaScript libraries:<\/p>\n