Resource macros with folder paths

RapidWeaver Developer Network
1

Hey RMS guys (@dan @tpbradley),

I’ve got a question for you about generating resource macros – specifically to resources that are in a folder within the resources folder.

I’m posting this here because it doesn’t really seem like a bug – other parts of RW do the right thing – so I’m guessing I’m just using the API wrong. But it wasn’t obvious what I needed to do to fix the issue – I figured anyone else using resources might have the same question.

OK, here goes:

When I want to publish a resource image I make a <img> tag of course and the src property gets filled in with the RW Resource macro. I generate the macro using RWDocument’s method:

- (NSString *)macroStringForResource:(RWSiteResource *)resource;

It seems to work fine and passes me back a macro like this:

%resource(flower.jpg)%
It doesn’t work, obviously. It’s missing the folder info.

But a Styled Text page with the same resource seems to work. So, clearly there’s some way to fetch the correct macro.

And if I Ctrl-Click on the resource and choose Copy Macro then the macro I get is:

%resource(A-Folder/flower.jpg)%

And this works! Even on the stacks page I can use this macro in an HTML stack to make an <img> tag and it works great.

So what am I doing wrong? How do I get the folder info? How is the Styled Text plugin doing this? And how does the Copy Macro method differ from the method that I’m calling?

Isaiah

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Also: I did find a little bug while researching this:

  1. Add a resource using the API method:

NSSiteResource *resource = [nsDocument addResourceForURL:url error:&error];

  1. Now move the image into a folder in the resources window.
  2. Save. Quit. Relaunch.
  3. Now if you call, using the same URL as the image in step #1:

NSSiteResource *resource = [nsDocument resourceForURL:url];

Result:

resource => nil

  1. Now if you call, using the same URL as the image in step #1:

NSSiteResource *resource = [nsDocument addResourceForURL:url error:&error];

Result:
A new new resource at the top level of the resources is created and the object returned.

I would expect both of these methods to be hierarchical.

Also: the Styled Text plugin again manages to do the right thing. can you explain what methods I should use to search the entire resources folder tree for an existing URL?

3

Hey @Isaiah,

I think this should be classed as a bug. From looking at the code I can see that - (NSString *)macroStringForResource:(RWSiteResource *)resource; simply returns the filename of the resource wrapped in %resource(). Other areas of RW, like the resource browser will build a full path to the resource.

This looks to be a historic thing where multiple folder levels were introduced at a later point and macroStringForResource wasn’t updated to return a full path. I also have a vague recollection that during export, a resource with the given name will be searched for. I had a quick look in the exporter and couldn’t see anything so it may have been a possible ‘fix’ we thought about at some point.

I don’t see a problem with updating the macroStringForResource method to return a full path but I think a bigger problem is that as soon as you move or rename a resource, all the resource macros break. I’m not sure what the solution is yet, maybe the macro should use the resource identifier which doesn’t change - but it’s an ugly uuid that won’t mean anything to the user.

I’ll check into that resourceForURL: bug, it definitely sounds like one. I’m pretty sure the Styled Text plugin uses a method that compares resource checksums to prevent duplicates. Again, I don’t see a problem updating this method to do the same.

Cheers

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Oh also, how did you use a resource macro with Styled Text? Was is just coped using the resource browser?

5

A fix for macroStringForResource is great :+1:

But if there’s a solution that works in code today I’d love to know it – it would be great to have some conditional code to help be a bit more backward compatible too. You don’t have to be too detailed – just a hint at what API are involved, I"m happy to fill in the details.

Also: the macro thing is an unnecessary detour. I store the resource ID. If there’s some direct way to go from ID to published path it would be even better. I only use the macro today because it’s the only way I know how.

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6

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a solution for this right now. I mean, there’s private methods that will do it but I can’t find an equivalent in the public API. There is a method for generating a link directly from a resource ID but this doesn’t take into account the current publishing destination and could return the wrong thing.

However, I may have come up with something that’ll do what you want and be backwards compatible. I’ll get something simple working and see what you think.

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I’m happy to use private API to fill in support for RW7 or RW8.0. Those old versions aren’t going to change, so private API less fragile – so long as public API is used going forward. Surely better than no-support.

I’m happy to have methods that generates links at that need to be modified for hierarchy. Old-days RW worked that way a lot. I’m pretty sure I still have that code lying around.

Currently I have zero support for RW7 and buggy support for RW8. Anything that I can do to improve that is a win.

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