Calling functions in other classes

[lastdance]

I've been reading S2 documentation like crazy, and I'm pretty sure the answer is 'no' but I'm going to throw out the question anyway:

Is there any possible way to call functions from a different view than the one you're currently on? For example, the EntryPage class has a function print_comments. But what if I want to print the subjects of the 5 latest comments on the Recent view (maybe in the sidebar)? The RecentPage class doesn't include that function, so I'm assuming there's no way to call it unless the core was rewritten to add it into RecentPage and allow it to take parameters so it knows which comments to pull back. Am I correct in that assumption?

I'll gladly take the question elsewhere if this isn't the right place. Any direction would be so much appreciated.

Comments

Flimsy Suggestion

[zorkfox]

Perhaps you can access the comments using the Entries[] member of the RecentPage class, on the theory that each element of that array will have data about the comments on that entry. I tried to write some code for you, but my brain hasn't been in code-mode for a long time and I was stymied.

Look through the Entries[] array of your current instance of the RecentPage class and get the titles of the comments from the Comments[] array in those entries until you have five of them. Build in a flow control statement to stop after five (so you don't search every entry needlessly) and also one to handle an instance of no comments (this covers instances where there are no entries yet, or a page full of entries that don't have any comments).

When I glanced at the language reference for S2, I didn't see a simple way to do this because there isn't an until loop or even a while. You have to make up some kind of bastardized foreach. :( Maybe you can write an if statement that calls return when it finds it has collected five comments.

You might be able to use this function from Haven as a template. It's not the greatest example of code, but I hope it'll get your brain working in the right direction:

function RecentPage::lay_sidebar_view_summary() : string
{
    var string return;
    foreach var Entry e ($.entries) {
        var string subject = $e.subject != "" ? $e.subject : $*text_nosubject;
        $return = $return + "→";
        if ($e.security) { $return = $return + " $e.security_icon"; }
        $return = $e.poster.username != $.journal.username ?
                  $return + """ $e.poster:<br /><a href="#entry_$e.itemid">$subject</a><br />""" : 
                  $return + """ <a href="#entry_$e.itemid">$subject</a><br />""";
    }
}

Re: Flimsy Suggestion

[lastdance]

See, this is exactly what I want to do.

My code snippet is similar. I'm using the print_module_pagesummary method as an example, since it prints either the post subjects or the comment subjects depending which page it's called from. I assume to get comment subjects, I would have to put another foreach inside foreach var Entry in the RecentPage section. However...

RecentPage contains Entry, which contains class CommentInfo, which doesn't include any of the content of the comments, just how many there are, whether they're screened, etc. It's the EntryPage class itself that contains class Comments, which does include the comment content. I guess I'm blindly looking for the bridge between the two or if there is one.

Re: Flimsy Suggestion

[zorkfox]

Aw, heck. I'm sorry; you're totally right about that. It's because I started writing my reply with EntryPage in mind instead of ReplyPage, noticed half-way through, and made corrections. I can only blame the lateness of the hour. ^_^;

Re: Flimsy Suggestion

[lastdance]

No, no, I very much appreciate the attempt. We were on the same track, but ultimately, it was an unsolveable problem. =|

Re: Flimsy Suggestion

[zorkfox]

Sigh! I know why they limit the data in cases like this, but it sure is frustrating when you come up with a clever idea, but can't implement it because the computer time becomes a problem. :(