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Before you get too far, it's probably worth having a quick read of the Roundup design documentation.
Customisation of Roundup can take one of six forms:
The third case is special because it takes two distinctly different forms depending upon whether the tracker has been initialised or not. The other two may be done at any time, before or after tracker initialisation. Yes, this includes adding or removing properties from classes.
Trackers have the following structure:
| Tracker File | Description |
|---|---|
| config.ini | Holds the basic tracker configuration |
| schema.py | Holds the tracker schema |
| initial_data.py | Holds any data to be entered into the database when the tracker is initialised. |
| db/ | Holds the tracker's database |
| db/files/ | Holds the tracker's upload files and messages |
| db/backend_name | Names the database back-end for the tracker |
| detectors/ | Auditors and reactors for this tracker |
| extensions/ | Additional web actions and templating utilities. |
| html/ | Web interface templates, images and style sheets |
| lib/ | optional common imports for detectors and extensions |
The config.ini located in your tracker home contains the basic configuration for the web and e-mail components of roundup's interfaces.
Changes to the data captured by your tracker is controlled by the tracker schema. Some configuration is also performed using permissions - see the security / access controls section. For example, to allow users to automatically register through the email interface, you must grant the "Anonymous" Role the "Email Access" Permission.
The following is taken from the Python Library Reference (May 20, 2004) section "ConfigParser -- Configuration file parser":
The configuration file consists of sections, led by a "[section]" header and followed by "name = value" entries, with line continuations on a newline with leading whitespace. Note that leading whitespace is removed from values. The optional values can contain format strings which refer to other values in the same section. Lines beginning with "#" or ";" are ignored and may be used to provide comments.
For example:
[My Section] foodir = %(dir)s/whatever dir = frobwould resolve the "%(dir)s" to the value of "dir" ("frob" in this case) resulting in "foodir" being "frob/whatever".
Settings in this section are used by Postgresql and MySQL backends only
Outgoing email options. Used for nosy messages, password reset and registration approval requests.
Roundup Mail Gateway options
OpenPGP mail processing options
Nosy messages sending
You may generate a new default config file using the roundup-admin genconfig command.
Configuration variables may be referred to in lower or upper case. In code, variables not in the "main" section are referred to using their section and name, so "domain" in the section "mail" becomes MAIL_DOMAIN. The configuration variables available are:
You can't add new variables to the config.ini file in the tracker home but you can add two new config.ini files:
For example, the following in detectors/config.ini:
[main] qa_recipients = email@example.com
is accessible as:
db.config.detectors['QA_RECIPIENTS']
Note that the name grouping applied to the main configuration file is applied to the extension config files, so if you instead have:
[qa] recipients = email@example.com
then the above db.config.detectors['QA_RECIPIENTS'] will still work.
Note
if you modify the schema, you'll most likely need to edit the web interface HTML template files and detectors to reflect your changes.
A tracker schema defines what data is stored in the tracker's database. Schemas are defined using Python code in the schema.py module of your tracker.
The schema.py module contains two functions:
The "classic" schema looks like this (see section setkey(property) below for the meaning of 'setkey' -- you may also want to look into the sections setlabelprop(property) and setorderprop(property) for specifying (default) labelling and ordering of classes.):
pri = Class(db, "priority", name=String(), order=String())
pri.setkey("name")
stat = Class(db, "status", name=String(), order=String())
stat.setkey("name")
keyword = Class(db, "keyword", name=String())
keyword.setkey("name")
user = Class(db, "user", username=String(), organisation=String(),
password=String(), address=String(), realname=String(),
phone=String(), alternate_addresses=String(),
queries=Multilink('query'), roles=String(), timezone=String())
user.setkey("username")
msg = FileClass(db, "msg", author=Link("user"), summary=String(),
date=Date(), recipients=Multilink("user"),
files=Multilink("file"), messageid=String(), inreplyto=String())
file = FileClass(db, "file", name=String())
issue = IssueClass(db, "issue", keyword=Multilink("keyword"),
status=Link("status"), assignedto=Link("user"),
priority=Link("priority"))
issue.setkey('title')
You must never:
Your schema may be changed at any time before or after the tracker has been initialised (or used). You may:
In the tracker above, we've defined 7 classes of information:
- priority
- Defines the possible levels of urgency for issues.
- status
- Defines the possible states of processing the issue may be in.
- keyword
- Initially empty, will hold keywords useful for searching issues.
- user
- Initially holding the "admin" user, will eventually have an entry for all users using roundup.
- msg
- Initially empty, will hold all e-mail messages sent to or generated by roundup.
- file
- Initially empty, will hold all files attached to issues.
- issue
- Initially empty, this is where the issue information is stored.
We define the "priority" and "status" classes to allow two things: reduction in the amount of information stored on the issue and more powerful, accurate searching of issues by priority and status. By only requiring a link on the issue (which is stored as a single number) we reduce the chance that someone mis-types a priority or status - or simply makes a new one up.
A Class defines a particular class (or type) of data that will be stored in the database. A class comprises one or more properties, which gives the information about the class items.
The actual data entered into the database, using class.create(), are called items. They have a special immutable property called 'id'. We sometimes refer to this as the itemid.
A Class is comprised of one or more properties of the following types:
All Classes automatically have a number of properties by default:
FileClasses save their "content" attribute off in a separate file from the rest of the database. This reduces the number of large entries in the database, which generally makes databases more efficient, and also allows us to use command-line tools to operate on the files. They are stored in the files sub-directory of the 'db' directory in your tracker. FileClasses also have a "type" attribute to store the MIME type of the file.
IssueClasses automatically include the "messages", "files", "nosy", and "superseder" properties.
The messages and files properties list the links to the messages and files related to the issue. The nosy property is a list of links to users who wish to be informed of changes to the issue - they get "CC'ed" e-mails when messages are sent to or generated by the issue. The nosy reactor (in the 'detectors' directory) handles this action. The superseder link indicates an issue which has superseded this one.
They also have the dynamically generated "creation", "activity" and "creator" properties.
The value of the "creation" property is the date when an item was created, and the value of the "activity" property is the date when any property on the item was last edited (equivalently, these are the dates on the first and last records in the item's journal). The "creator" property holds a link to the user that created the issue.
Select a String property of the class to be the key property. The key property must be unique, and allows references to the items in the class by the content of the key property. That is, we can refer to users by their username: for example, let's say that there's an issue in roundup, issue 23. There's also a user, richard, who happens to be user 2. To assign an issue to him, we could do either of:
roundup-admin set issue23 assignedto=2
or:
roundup-admin set issue23 assignedto=richard
Note, the same thing can be done in the web and e-mail interfaces.
Select a property of the class to be the label property. The label property is used whereever an item should be uniquely identified, e.g., when displaying a link to an item. If setlabelprop is not specified for a class, the following values are tried for the label:
- the key of the class (see the setkey(property) section above)
- the "name" property
- the "title" property
- the first property from the sorted property name list
So in most cases you can get away without specifying setlabelprop explicitly.
Select a property of the class to be the order property. The order property is used whenever using a default sort order for the class, e.g., when grouping or sorting class A by a link to class B in the user interface, the order property of class B is used for sorting. If setorderprop is not specified for a class, the following values are tried for the order property:
- the property named "order"
- the label property (see setlabelprop(property) above)
So in most cases you can get away without specifying setorderprop explicitly.
Create an item in the database. This is generally used to create items in the "definitional" classes like "priority" and "status".
When we sort items in the hyperdb, we use one of a number of methods, depending on the properties being sorted on:
Note that if an "order" property is defined on a Class that is used for sorting, all items of that Class must have a value against the "order" property, or sorting will result in random ordering.
The Roundup wiki has examples of how schemas can be customised to add new functionality.
Detectors are initialised every time you open your tracker database, so you're free to add and remove them any time, even after the database is initialised via the roundup-admin initialise command.
The detectors in your tracker fire before (auditors) and after (reactors) changes to the contents of your database. They are Python modules that sit in your tracker's detectors directory. You will have some installed by default - have a look. You can write new detectors or modify the existing ones. The existing detectors installed for you are:
If you don't want this default behaviour, you're completely free to change or remove these detectors.
See the detectors section in the design document for details of the interface for detectors.
Auditors are called with the arguments:
audit(db, cl, itemid, newdata)
where db is the database, cl is an instance of Class or IssueClass within the database, and newdata is a dictionary mapping property names to values.
For a create() operation, the itemid argument is None and newdata contains all of the initial property values with which the item is about to be created.
For a set() operation, newdata contains only the names and values of properties that are about to be changed.
For a retire() or restore() operation, newdata is None.
Reactors are called with the arguments:
react(db, cl, itemid, olddata)
where db is the database, cl is an instance of Class or IssueClass within the database, and olddata is a dictionary mapping property names to values.
For a create() operation, the itemid argument is the id of the newly-created item and olddata is None.
For a set() operation, olddata contains the names and previous values of properties that were changed.
For a retire() or restore() operation, itemid is the id of the retired or restored item and olddata is None.
Sample additional detectors that have been found useful will appear in the 'detectors' directory of the Roundup distribution. If you want to use one, copy it to the 'detectors' of your tracker instance:
Generally speaking, the following rules should be observed:
Auditors may raise the Reject exception to prevent the creation of or changes to items in the database. The mail gateway, for example, will not attach files or messages to issues when the creation of those files or messages are prevented through the Reject exception. It'll also not create users if that creation is Reject'ed too.
To use, simply add at the top of your auditor:
from roundup.exceptions import Reject
And then when your rejection criteria have been detected, simply:
raise Reject
The module roundup.mailer contains most of the nuts-n-bolts required to generate email messages from Roundup.
In addition, the IssueClass methods nosymessage() and send_message() are used to generate nosy messages, and may generate messages which only consist of a change note (ie. the message id parameter is not required - this is referred to as a "System Message" because it comes from "the system" and not a user).
Note
If you modify the content of definitional classes, you'll most likely need to edit the tracker detectors to reflect your changes.
Customisation of the special "definitional" classes (eg. status, priority, resolution, ...) may be done either before or after the tracker is initialised. The actual method of doing so is completely different in each case though, so be careful to use the right one.
As the "admin" user, click on the "class list" link in the web interface to bring up a list of all database classes. Click on the name of the class you wish to change the content of.
You may also use the roundup-admin interface's create, set and retire methods to add, alter or remove items from the classes in question.
See "adding a new field to the classic schema" for an example that requires database content changes.
A set of Permissions is built into the security module by default:
These are assigned to the "Admin" Role by default, and allow a user to do anything. Every Class you define in your tracker schema also gets an Create, Edit and View Permission of its own. The web and email interfaces also define:
These are hooked into the default Roles:
And finally, the "admin" user gets the "Admin" Role, and the "anonymous" user gets "Anonymous" assigned when the tracker is installed.
For the "User" Role, the "classic" tracker defines:
And the "Anonymous" Role is defined as:
Put together, these settings appear in the tracker's schema.py file:
#
# TRACKER SECURITY SETTINGS
#
# See the configuration and customisation document for information
# about security setup.
#
# REGULAR USERS
#
# Give the regular users access to the web and email interface
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'Web Access')
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'Email Access')
# Assign the access and edit Permissions for issue, file and message
# to regular users now
for cl in 'issue', 'file', 'msg', 'query', 'keyword':
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'View', cl)
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'Edit', cl)
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'Create', cl)
for cl in 'priority', 'status':
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'View', cl)
# May users view other user information? Comment these lines out
# if you don't want them to
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', 'View', 'user')
# Users should be able to edit their own details -- this permission
# is limited to only the situation where the Viewed or Edited item
# is their own.
def own_record(db, userid, itemid):
'''Determine whether the userid matches the item being accessed.'''
return userid == itemid
p = db.security.addPermission(name='View', klass='user', check=own_record,
description="User is allowed to view their own user details")
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', p)
p = db.security.addPermission(name='Edit', klass='user', check=own_record,
description="User is allowed to edit their own user details")
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User', p)
#
# ANONYMOUS USER PERMISSIONS
#
# Let anonymous users access the web interface. Note that almost all
# trackers will need this Permission. The only situation where it's not
# required is in a tracker that uses an HTTP Basic Authenticated front-end.
db.security.addPermissionToRole('Anonymous', 'Web Access')
# Let anonymous users access the email interface (note that this implies
# that they will be registered automatically, hence they will need the
# "Create" user Permission below)
# This is disabled by default to stop spam from auto-registering users on
# public trackers.
#db.security.addPermissionToRole('Anonymous', 'Email Access')
# Assign the appropriate permissions to the anonymous user's Anonymous
# Role. Choices here are:
# - Allow anonymous users to register
db.security.addPermissionToRole('Anonymous', 'Create', 'user')
# Allow anonymous users access to view issues (and the related, linked
# information)
for cl in 'issue', 'file', 'msg', 'keyword', 'priority', 'status':
db.security.addPermissionToRole('Anonymous', 'View', cl)
# [OPTIONAL]
# Allow anonymous users access to create or edit "issue" items (and the
# related file and message items)
#for cl in 'issue', 'file', 'msg':
# db.security.addPermissionToRole('Anonymous', 'Create', cl)
# db.security.addPermissionToRole('Anonymous', 'Edit', cl)
Permissions are automatically checked when information is rendered through the web. This includes:
New users are assigned the Roles defined in the config file as:
The users may only edit their issues example shows customisation of these parameters.
You may alter the configuration variables to change the Role that new web or email users get, for example to not give them access to the web interface if they register through email.
You may use the roundup-admin "security" command to display the current Role and Permission configuration in your tracker.
When adding a new Permission, you will need to:
add it to your tracker's schema.py so it is created, using security.addPermission, for example:
self.security.addPermission(name="View", klass='frozzle',
description="User is allowed to access frozzles")
will set up a new "View" permission on the Class "frozzle".
enable it for the Roles that should have it (verify with "roundup-admin security")
add it to the relevant HTML interface templates
add it to the appropriate xxxPermission methods on in your tracker interfaces module
The addPermission method takes a couple of optional parameters:
See the examples section for longer examples of customisation.
Create a new Permission called "Closer" for the "issue" class. Create a new Role "Manager" which has that Permission, and assign that to the appropriate users. In your web interface, only display the "resolved" issue state option when the user has the "Closer" Permissions. Enforce the Permission with an auditor. This is very similar to the previous example, except that the web interface check would look like:
<option tal:condition="python:request.user.hasPermission('Closer')"
value="resolved">Resolved</option>
Create a new Role called "User Admin" which has the Permission for editing users:
db.security.addRole(name='User Admin', description='Managing users')
p = db.security.getPermission('Edit', 'user')
db.security.addPermissionToRole('User Admin', p)
and assign the Role to the users who need the permission.
The web interface is provided by the roundup.cgi.client module and is used by roundup.cgi, roundup-server and ZRoundup (ZRoundup is broken, until further notice). In all cases, we determine which tracker is being accessed (the first part of the URL path inside the scope of the CGI handler) and pass control on to the roundup.cgi.client.Client class - which handles the rest of the access through its main() method. This means that you can do pretty much anything you want as a web interface to your tracker.
If you choose to change the tracker schema you will need to ensure the web interface knows about it:
The basic processing of a web request proceeds as follows:
In some situations, exceptions occur:
HTTP Redirect (generally raised by an action)
here we serve up a FileClass "content" property
here we serve up a file from the tracker "html" directory
here the action is cancelled, the request is rendered and an error message is displayed indicating that permission was not granted for the action to take place
this exception percolates up to the CGI interface that called the client
To determine the "context" of a request, we look at the URL and the special request variable @template. The URL path after the tracker identifier is examined. Typical URL paths look like:
where the "tracker identifier" is "tracker" in the above cases. That means we're looking at "issue", "issue1", "@@file/style.css", "file1" and "file1/kitten.png" in the cases above. The path is generally only one entry long - longer paths are handled differently.
Both b. and e. stop before we bother to determine the template we're going to use. That's because they don't actually use templates.
The template used is specified by the @template CGI variable, which defaults to:
The "home" context is special because it allows you to add templated pages to your tracker that don't rely on a class or item (ie. an issues list or specific issue).
Let's say you wish to add frames to control the layout of your tracker's interface. You'd probably have:
A top-level frameset page. This page probably wouldn't be templated, so it could be served as a static file (see serving static content)
A sidebar frame that is templated. Let's call this page "home.navigation.html" in your tracker's "html" directory. To load that page up, you use the URL:
<tracker url>/home?@template=navigation
See the previous section determining web context where it describes @@file paths.
When a user requests a web page, they may optionally also request for an action to take place. As described in how requests are processed, the action is performed before the requested page is generated. Actions are triggered by using a @action CGI variable, where the value is one of:
Mangle some of the form variables:
Each of the actions is implemented by a corresponding *XxxAction* (where "Xxx" is the name of the action) class in the roundup.cgi.actions module. These classes are registered with roundup.cgi.client.Client. If you need to define new actions, you may add them there (see defining new web actions).
Each action class also has a *permission* method which determines whether the action is permissible given the current user. The base permission checks for each action are:
Item properties and their values are edited with html FORM variables and their values. You can:
These operations will only take place if the form action (the @action variable) is "edit" or "new".
In the following, <bracketed> values are variable, "@" may be either ":" or "@", and other text "required" is fixed.
Two special form variables are used to specify user language preferences:
Most properties are specified as form variables:
Designators name a specific item of a class.
Once we have determined the "propname", we look at it to see if it's special:
The associated form value is a comma-separated list of property names that must be specified when the form is submitted for the edit operation to succeed.
When the <designator> is missing, the properties are for the current context item. When <designator> is present, they are for the item specified by <designator>.
The "@required" specifier must come before any of the properties it refers to are assigned in the form.
The value of the form variable is converted appropriately, depending on the type of the property.
For a Link('klass') property, the form value is a single key for 'klass', where the key field is specified in schema.py.
For a Multilink('klass') property, the form value is a comma-separated list of keys for 'klass', where the key field is specified in schema.py.
Note that for simple-form-variables specifiying Link and Multilink properties, the linked-to class must have a key field.
For a String() property specifying a filename, the file named by the form value is uploaded. This means we try to set additional properties "filename" and "type" (if they are valid for the class). Otherwise, the property is set to the form value.
For Date(), Interval(), Boolean(), and Number() properties, the form value is converted to the appropriate
Any of the form variables may be prefixed with a classname or designator.
Two special form values are supported for backwards compatibility:
This is equivalent to:
@link@messages=msg-1 msg-1@content=value
except that in addition, the "author" and "date" properties of "msg-1" are set to the userid of the submitter, and the current time, respectively.
This is equivalent to:
@link@files=file-1 file-1@content=value
The String content value is handled as described above for file uploads.
If both the "@note" and "@file" form variables are specified, the action:
@link@msg-1@files=file-1
is also performed.
We also check that FileClass items have a "content" property with actual content, otherwise we remove them from all_props before returning.
The default templates are html4 compliant. If you wish to change them to be xhtml compliant, you'll need to change the html_version configuration variable in config.ini to 'xhtml' instead of 'html4'.
Most customisation of the web view can be done by modifying the templates in the tracker 'html' directory. There are several types of files in there. The minimal template includes:
The classic template has a number of additional templates.
Remember that you can create any template extension you want to, so if you just want to play around with the templating for new issues, you can copy the current "issue.item" template to "issue.test", and then access the test template using the "@template" URL argument:
http://your.tracker.example/tracker/issue?@template=test
and it won't affect your users using the "issue.item" template.
Roundup's templates consist of special attributes on the HTML tags. These attributes form the Template Attribute Language, or TAL. The basic TAL commands are:
Define a new variable that is local to this tag and its contents. For example:
<html tal:define="title request/description"> <head><title tal:content="title"></title></head> </html>
In this example, the variable "title" is defined as the result of the expression "request/description". The "tal:content" command inside the <html> tag may then use the "title" variable.
Only keep this tag and its contents if the expression is true. For example:
<p tal:condition="python:request.user.hasPermission('View', 'issue')">
Display some issue information.
</p>
In the example, the <p> tag and its contents are only displayed if the user has the "View" permission for issues. We consider the number zero, a blank string, an empty list, and the built-in variable nothing to be false values. Nearly every other value is true, including non-zero numbers, and strings with anything in them (even spaces!).
Repeat this tag and its contents for each element of the sequence that the expression returns, defining a new local variable and a special "repeat" variable for each element. For example:
<tr tal:repeat="u user/list"> <td tal:content="u/id"></td> <td tal:content="u/username"></td> <td tal:content="u/realname"></td> </tr>
The example would iterate over the sequence of users returned by "user/list" and define the local variable "u" for each entry. Using the repeat command creates a new variable called "repeat" which you may access to gather information about the iteration. See the section below on the repeat variable.
Replace this tag with the result of the expression. For example:
<span tal:replace="request/user/realname" />
The example would replace the <span> tag and its contents with the user's realname. If the user's realname was "Bruce", then the resultant output would be "Bruce".
Replace the contents of this tag with the result of the expression. For example:
<span tal:content="request/user/realname">user's name appears here </span>
The example would replace the contents of the <span> tag with the user's realname. If the user's realname was "Bruce" then the resultant output would be "<span>Bruce</span>".
Set attributes on this tag to the results of expressions. For example:
<a tal:attributes="href string:user${request/user/id}">My Details</a>
In the example, the "href" attribute of the <a> tag is set to the value of the "string:user${request/user/id}" expression, which will be something like "user123".
Remove this tag (but not its contents) if the expression is true. For example:
<span tal:omit-tag="python:1">Hello, world!</span>
would result in output of:
Hello, world!
Note that the commands on a given tag are evaulated in the order above, so define comes before condition, and so on.
Additionally, you may include tags such as <tal:block>, which are removed from output. Its content is kept, but the tag itself is not (so don't go using any "tal:attributes" commands on it). This is useful for making arbitrary blocks of HTML conditional or repeatable (very handy for repeating multiple table rows, which would othewise require an illegal tag placement to effect the repeat).
Templating Expressions are covered by Template Attribute Language Expression Syntax, or TALES. The expressions you may use in the attribute values may be one of the following forms:
These are object attribute / item accesses. Roughly speaking, the path item/status/checklist is broken into parts item, status and checklist. The item part is the root of the expression. We then look for a status attribute on item, or failing that, a status item (as in item['status']). If that fails, the path expression fails. When we get to the end, the object we're left with is evaluated to get a string - if it is a method, it is called; if it is an object, it is stringified. Path expressions may have an optional path: prefix, but they are the default expression type, so it's not necessary.
If an expression evaluates to default, then the expression is "cancelled" - whatever HTML already exists in the template will remain (tag content in the case of tal:content, attributes in the case of tal:attributes).
If an expression evaluates to nothing then the target of the expression is removed (tag content in the case of tal:content, attributes in the case of tal:attributes and the tag itself in the case of tal:replace).
If an element in the path may not exist, then you can use the | operator in the expression to provide an alternative. So, the expression request/form/foo/value | default would simply leave the current HTML in place if the "foo" form variable doesn't exist.
You may use the python function path, as in path("item/status"), to embed path expressions in Python expressions.
Modifiers:
Macros are used in Roundup to save us from repeating the same common page stuctures over and over. The most common (and probably only) macro you'll use is the "icing" macro defined in the "page" template.
Macros are generated and used inside your templates using special attributes similar to the basic templating actions. In this case, though, the attributes belong to the Macro Expansion Template Attribute Language, or METAL. The macro commands are:
Define that the tag and its contents are now a macro that may be inserted into other templates using the use-macro command. For example:
<html metal:define-macro="page"> ... </html>
defines a macro called "page" using the <html> tag and its contents. Once defined, macros are stored on the template they're defined on in the macros attribute. You can access them later on through the templates variable, eg. the most common templates/page/macros/icing to access the "page" macro of the "page" template.
Use a macro, which is identified by the path expression (see above). This will replace the current tag with the identified macro contents. For example:
<tal:block metal:use-macro="templates/page/macros/icing"> ... </tal:block> will replace the tag and its contents with the "page" macro of the "page" template.
To define dynamic parts of the macro, you define "slots" which may be filled when the macro is used with a use-macro command. For example, the templates/page/macros/icing macro defines a slot like so:
<title metal:define-slot="head_title">title goes here</title>
In your use-macro command, you may now use a fill-slot command like this:
<title metal:fill-slot="head_title">My Title</title>
where the tag that fills the slot completely replaces the one defined as the slot in the macro.
Note that you may not mix METAL and TAL commands on the same tag, but TAL commands may be used freely inside METAL-using tags (so your fill-slots tags may have all manner of TAL inside them).
This is implemented by roundup.cgi.templating.RoundupPageTemplate
The following variables are available to templates.
This is a special variable - if an expression evaluates to this, then the tag (in the case of a tal:replace), its contents (in the case of tal:content) or some attributes (in the case of tal:attributes) will not appear in the the output. So, for example:
<span tal:attributes="class nothing">Hello, World!</span>
would result in:
<span>Hello, World!</span>
Also a special variable - if an expression evaluates to this, then the existing HTML in the template will not be replaced or removed, it will remain. So:
<span tal:replace="default">Hello, World!</span>
would result in:
<span>Hello, World!</span>
Internationalization service, providing two string translation methods:
Like gettext(), but consider plural forms. If a translation is found, apply the plural formula to number, and return the resulting message (some languages have more than two plural forms). If no translation is found, return singular if number is 1; return plural otherwise.
This function requires python2.3; in earlier python versions may not work as expected.
The context variable is one of three things based on the current context (see determining web context for how we figure this out):
If the context is not None, we can access the properties of the class or item. The only real difference between cases 2 and 3 above are:
This is implemented by the roundup.cgi.templating.HTMLClass class.
This wrapper object provides access to a hyperb class. It is used primarily in both index view and new item views, but it's also usable anywhere else that you wish to access information about a class, or the items of a class, when you don't have a specific item of that class in mind.
We allow access to properties. There will be no "id" property. The value accessed through the property will be the current value of the same name from the CGI form.
There are several methods available on these wrapper objects:
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| properties | return a hyperdb property wrapper for all of this class's properties. |
| list | lists all of the active (not retired) items in the class. |
| csv | return the items of this class as a chunk of CSV text. |
| propnames | lists the names of the properties of this class. |
| filter | lists of items from this class, filtered and sorted. Two options are avaible for sorting:
eg. All issues with a priority of "1" with messages added in the last week, sorted by activity date: issue.filter(filterspec={"priority": "1", 'messages.creation' : '.-1w;'}, sort=[('activity', '+')]) |
| filter_sql | Only in SQL backends Lists the items that match the SQL provided. The SQL is a complete "select" statement. The SQL select must include the item id as the first column. This function does not filter out retired items, add on a where clause "__retired__ <> 1" if you don't want retired nodes. |
| classhelp | display a link to a javascript popup containing this class' "help" template. This generates a link to a popup window which displays the properties indicated by "properties" of the class named by "classname". The "properties" should be a comma-separated list (eg. 'id,name,description'). Properties defaults to all the properties of a class (excluding id, creator, created and activity). You may optionally override the "label" displayed, the "width", the "height", the number of items per page ("pagesize") and the field on which the list is sorted ("sort"). With the "filter" arg it is possible to specify a filter for which items are supposed to be displayed. It has to be of the format "<field>=<values>;<field>=<values>;...". The popup window will be resizable and scrollable. If the "property" arg is given, it's passed through to the javascript help_window function. This allows updating of a property in the calling HTML page. If the "form" arg is given, it's passed through to the javascript help_window function - it's the name of the form the "property" belongs to. |
| submit | generate a submit button (and action hidden element) |
| renderWith | render this class with the given template. |
| history | returns 'New node - no history' :) |
| is_edit_ok | is the user allowed to Edit the current class? |
| is_view_ok | is the user allowed to View the current class? |
Note that if you have a property of the same name as one of the above methods, you'll need to access it using a python "item access" expression. For example:
python:context['list']
will access the "list" property, rather than the list method.
This is implemented by the roundup.cgi.templating.HTMLItem class.
This wrapper object provides access to a hyperb item.
We allow access to properties. There will be no "id" property. The value accessed through the property will be the current value of the same name from the CGI form.
There are several methods available on these wrapper objects:
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| submit | generate a submit button (and action hidden element) |
| journal | return the journal of the current item (not implemented) |
| history | render the journal of the current item as HTML |
| renderQueryForm | specific to the "query" class - render the search form for the query |
| hasPermission | specific to the "user" class - determine whether the user has a Permission. The signature is:
hasPermission(self, permission, [classname=],
[property=], [itemid=])
where the classname defaults to the current context. |
| hasRole | specific to the "user" class - determine whether the user has a Role. The signature is: hasRole(self, rolename) |
| is_edit_ok | is the user allowed to Edit the current item? |
| is_view_ok | is the user allowed to View the current item? |
| is_retired | is the item retired? |
| download_url | generate a url-quoted link for download of FileClass item contents (ie. file<id>/<name>) |
| copy_url | generate a url-quoted link for creating a copy of this item. By default, the copy will acquire all properties of the current item except for messages and files. This can be overridden by passing exclude argument which contains a list (or any iterable) of property names that shall not be copied. Database-driven properties like id or activity cannot be copied. |
Note that if you have a property of the same name as one of the above methods, you'll need to access it using a python "item access" expression. For example:
python:context['journal']
will access the "journal" property, rather than the journal method.
This is implemented by subclasses of the roundup.cgi.templating.HTMLProperty class (HTMLStringProperty, HTMLNumberProperty, and so on).
This wrapper object provides access to a single property of a class. Its value may be either:
The property wrapper has some useful attributes:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| _name | the name of the property |
| _value | the value of the property if any - this is the actual value retrieved from the hyperdb for this property |
There are several methods available on these wrapper objects:
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| plain | render a "plain" representation of the property. This method may take two arguments:
|
| hyperlinked | The same as msg.content.plain(hyperlink=1), but nicer: "structure msg/content/hyperlinked" |
| field | render an appropriate form edit field for the property - for most types this is a text entry box, but for Booleans it's a tri-state yes/no/neither selection. This method may take some arguments:
|