diff -r fd8751c3f3ee -r a721966779be doc/book/en/development/webstdlib/basetemplates.rst
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+++ b/doc/book/en/development/webstdlib/basetemplates.rst	Thu May 07 16:33:22 2009 +0200
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+.. -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
+.. _templates:
+
+Templates
+=========
+
+[WRITE ME]
+
+* talk about main templates, etc.
+
+
+
+Look at ``cubicweb/web/views/basetemplates.py`` and you will
+find the base templates used to generate HTML for your application.
+
+A page is composed as indicated on the schema below :
+
+.. image:: ../../images/lax-book.06-main-template-layout.en.png
+
+In this section we will go through a couple of the primary templates
+you must be interested in, that is to say, the HTMLPageHeader,
+the HTMLPageFooter and the TheMainTemplate.
+
+
+HTMLPageHeader
+--------------
+
+Customize header
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Let's now move the search box in the header and remove the login form
+from the header. We'll show how to move it to the left column of the application.
+
+Let's say we do not want anymore the login menu to be in the header, but we 
+prefer it to be in the left column just below the logo. As the left column is
+rendered by ``TheMainTemplate``, we will show how to do it in TheMainTemplate_. 
+
+First, to remove the login menu, we just need to comment out the display of the
+login component such as follows : ::
+
+  class MyHTMLPageHeader(HTMLPageHeader):
+    
+      def main_header(self, view):
+          """build the top menu with authentification info and the rql box"""
+          self.w(u'<table id="header"><tr>\n')
+          self.w(u'<td id="firstcolumn">')
+          self.vreg.select_component('logo', self.req, self.rset).dispatch(w=self.w)
+          self.w(u'</td>\n')
+          # appliname and breadcrumbs
+          self.w(u'<td id="headtext">')
+          comp = self.vreg.select_component('appliname', self.req, self.rset)
+          if comp and comp.propval('visible'):
+              comp.dispatch(w=self.w)
+          comp = self.vreg.select_component('breadcrumbs', self.req, self.rset, view=view)
+          if comp and comp.propval('visible'):
+              comp.dispatch(w=self.w, view=view)
+          self.w(u'</td>')
+          # logged user and help
+          #self.w(u'<td>\n')
+          #comp = self.vreg.select_component('loggeduserlink', self.req, self.rset)
+          #comp.dispatch(w=self.w)
+          #self.w(u'</td><td>')
+
+          self.w(u'<td>')
+          helpcomp = self.vreg.select_component('help', self.req, self.rset)
+          if helpcomp: # may not be available if Card is not defined in the schema
+              helpcomp.dispatch(w=self.w)
+          self.w(u'</td>')
+          # lastcolumn
+          self.w(u'<td id="lastcolumn">')
+          self.w(u'</td>\n')
+          self.w(u'</tr></table>\n')
+          self.template('logform', rset=self.rset, id='popupLoginBox', klass='hidden',
+                        title=False, message=False)
+
+
+
+.. image:: ../../images/lax-book.06-header-no-login.en.png
+
+Let's now move the search box in the top-right header area. To do so, we will
+first create a method to get the search box display and insert it in the header
+table.
+
+::
+
+ from cubicweb.web.views.basetemplates import HTMLPageHeader
+ class MyHTMLPageHeader(HTMLPageHeader):
+    def main_header(self, view):
+        """build the top menu with authentification info and the rql box"""
+        self.w(u'<table id="header"><tr>\n')
+        self.w(u'<td id="firstcolumn">')
+        self.vreg.select_component('logo', self.req, self.rset).dispatch(w=self.w)
+        self.w(u'</td>\n')
+        # appliname and breadcrumbs
+        self.w(u'<td id="headtext">')
+        comp = self.vreg.select_component('appliname', self.req, self.rset)
+        if comp and comp.propval('visible'):
+            comp.dispatch(w=self.w)
+        comp = self.vreg.select_component('breadcrumbs', self.req, self.rset, view=view)
+        if comp and comp.propval('visible'):
+            comp.dispatch(w=self.w, view=view)
+        self.w(u'</td>')
+        
+        # logged user and help
+        #self.w(u'<td>\n')
+        #comp = self.vreg.select_component('loggeduserlink', self.req, self.rset)
+        #comp.dispatch(w=self.w)
+        #self.w(u'</td><td>')
+        
+        # search box
+        self.w(u'<td>')
+        self.get_searchbox(view, 'left')
+        self.w(u'</td>')
+
+        self.w(u'<td>')
+        helpcomp = self.vreg.select_component('help', self.req, self.rset)
+        if helpcomp: # may not be available if Card is not defined in the schema
+            helpcomp.dispatch(w=self.w)
+        self.w(u'</td>')
+        # lastcolumn
+        self.w(u'<td id="lastcolumn">')
+        self.w(u'</td>\n')
+        self.w(u'</tr></table>\n')
+        self.template('logform', rset=self.rset, id='popupLoginBox', klass='hidden',
+                      title=False, message=False)
+
+    def get_searchbox(self, view, context):
+        boxes = list(self.vreg.possible_vobjects('boxes', self.req, self.rset,
+                                                 view=view, context=context))
+        if boxes:
+            for box in boxes:
+                if box.id == 'search_box':
+                    box.dispatch(w=self.w, view=view)
+
+ 
+
+
+HTMLPageFooter
+--------------
+
+If you want to change the footer for example, look
+for HTMLPageFooter and override it in your views file as in : 
+::
+
+  form cubicweb.web.views.basetemplates import HTMLPageFooter
+  class MyHTMLPageFooter(HTMLPageFooter):
+      def call(self, **kwargs):
+          self.w(u'<div class="footer">')
+          self.w(u'This website has been created with <a href="http://cubicweb.org">CubicWeb</a>.')
+          self.w(u'</div>')
+
+Updating a view does not require any restart of the server. By reloading
+the page you can see your new page footer.
+
+
+TheMainTemplate
+---------------
+.. _TheMainTemplate:
+
+TheMainTemplate is responsible for the general layout of the entire application. 
+It defines the template of ``id = main`` that is used by the application.
+
+The default main template (`cubicweb.web.views.basetemplates.TheMainTemplate`)
+builds the page based on the following pattern:
+
+.. image:: ../../images/main_template_layout.png
+
+The rectangle containing `view.dispatch()` represents the area where the content
+view has to be displayed. The others represents sub-templates called to complete
+the page. A default implementation of those is provided in 
+`cubicweb.views.basetemplates`. You can, of course, overload those sub-templates
+to implement your own customization of the HTML page.
+
+We can also control certain aspects of the main template thanks to the following
+forms parameters:
+
+* `__notemplate`, if present (whatever the value assigned), only the content view
+  is returned
+* `__force_display`, if present and its value is not null, no navigation 
+  whatever the number of entities to display
+* `__method`, if the result set to render contains only one entity and this 
+  parameter is set, it refers to a method to call on the entity by passing it
+  the dictionary of the forms parameters, before going the classic way (through
+  step 1 and 2 described juste above)
+
+The MainTemplate is a bit complex as it tries to accomodate many
+different cases. We are now about to go through it and cutomize entirely
+our application.