Flash, XML layout, cache...

Thursday 16 October 2008 3:52:42 am

Hello,

I usually use flash files/banners that reads content from a xml file.

To use ezp publish to change that content I use a xml layout (create overrides, configure templates, etc)

For example I have a flash banner that uses images and text. In ezp I've created an object flash_image inside the folder flash_banner...

When I create a new flash_image in this folder or change any of them the xml file "/layout/set/xml/content/view/full/421" is not changed, except I go to the specific url... Then the xml is loaded with the new image...

Is there any way to reload these xml pages with a cronjob or using some template code, config in siteaccess, etc

Thanks...

eZ Partner in Madrid (Spain)
Web: http://www.atela.net/

Friday 17 October 2008 2:21:56 am

I'm also not entirely sure what Andreas does, I guess he does all the fetching in the xml pagelayout, thus trowing away the result of the module (in this case content/view) aka $module.result.content and not taking advantage of content view cache.

To further improve Piotrek's way to do things:
prepend layout/set/blankxml/ or something to the url, and define it in layout.ini as:

[blankxml]
PageLayout=
ContentType=text/xml

So no pagelayout is executed at all, meaning the template system is not loaded if the content/view is cached..

eZ Online Editor 5: http://projects.ez.no/ezoe || eZJSCore (Ajax): http://projects.ez.no/ezjscore || eZ Publish EE http://ez.no/eZPublish/eZ-Publish-Enterprise-Subscription
@: http://twitter.com/andrerom

Sunday 19 October 2008 4:13:54 pm

I use a pagelayout_xml.tpl with just the line: {$module_result.content} and in layout.ini.append.php:

[xml]
ContentType=text/xml
PageLayout=xml_pagelayout.tpl
UseAccessPass=false

For a specific xml output I use a template override for specific node with following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
{def $banners= fetch(content, list, hash(parent_node_id, $node.node_id ))}
<news>	
{foreach $banners as $banner}
  	<item picNews={$banner.data_map.image.content[flash_news].url|ezroot('double','full')} titleNews="{$banner.data_map.name.content|ezwash()}" infoNews="{$banner.data_map.intro.content|ezwash()}" linkNews={$banner.object.data_map.link.content.main_node.url_alias|ezurl()}></item>
{/foreach}
</news> 

I've made some test in a site that uses this templates/settings and all is working OK (even with all caches enabled).

Will check if the problem in the production site is related with the flash file (another file than the one I've tested), browser cache, or something else...

Anyway thanks for the comments, it's good to know how you make it in these cases...

eZ Partner in Madrid (Spain)
Web: http://www.atela.net/

Wednesday 25 November 2009 7:01:57 am

The icing on the cake to Andre and Piotrek comments: you can add a wildcard url redirect so that the long url

/layout/set/xml/content/view/xml/123

can be replaced by

/flashsource/123

As for the caching problems:

- your example fetches 1st level children. When editing a child his parent is always expired

- standard view cache rules apply when using this technique, except...

- for the fact that only the FULL view mode (plus sitemap and pdf) benefits of a view cache by default. To use view cache for XML view mode, add it to the CachedViewModes setting in site.ini

- if generation of your xml view takes a while and you want to have a glitchless flash experience, you might want to pre-generate it: either via PreViewCache or via a cronjob that fetches periodically your xml urls...

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