Wiki source code of Wiki Macro Tutorial

Version 49.1 by Asiri Rathnayake on 2009/07/21

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1 #startfloatingbox()
2 *Contents*
3 #toc ("2" "3" "")
4 #endfloatingbox()
5
6 1 Wiki Macro Tutorial
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8 Wiki macros allow macro authors to develop reusable and distributable macro modules. There is no java code involved; hence no compiling or packaging. Macro author simply needs to create a wiki page according to a particular specification and that's all!
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10 1.1 Prerequisites
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12 * Wiki macros are only available on XWiki Enterprise 2.0M2 and later versions
13 * Wiki macro authors need to have programming rights
14 * Wiki macros can only be defined inside the main wiki, though they can be used throughout a farm
15
16 1.1 Hello Macro
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18 We are going to start with a very simple xwiki/2.0 wiki macro which prints a greeting message to the document content. It isn't a very useful macro but the idea is to get you familiarised with the wiki macro creation process.
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20 1.1.1 Definition
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22 Wiki macros are defined using objects of type XWiki.WikiMacroClass. You define a wiki macro by creating a new wiki page and attaching it an object of type XWiki.WikiMacroClass. This class contains following fields:
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24 * Macro name: Name of the macro, which will be used by users to invoke your macro
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26 * Macro description: A short description of the macro, this description will be made available on the WYSIWYG editor (More on this later)
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28 * Macro content type: Whether this macro should support a body or not
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30 * Content description: A short description about the macro's content, this description will also be available on the WYSIWYG editor
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32 * Macro code: The actual wiki code that will be evaluated when the macro is executed, can be any xwiki content (should be in the same syntax as the document)
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34 Now we can define our hello macro as shown below:
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36 {image:macro1.png}
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38 1.1.1 Invocation
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40 A wiki macro can be invoked just like any other macro is invoked. Since we are writing a xwiki/2.0 wiki macro, we can invoke our hello macro as below:
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42 {code}
43 {{hello/}}
44 {code}
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46 And if you view the result it would say "Hello World!" (of course).
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48 1.1.1 Parameters
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50 Introducing a parameter to a wiki macro is pretty straight forward; you simply need to add an object of type XWiki.WikiMacroParameterClass into your wiki macro document (one object per parameter). This class contains several fields that allow you to define your parameter clearly:
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52 * Parameter name: Name of the parameter, users will refer this name when invoking your macro with parameters
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54 * Parameter description: A short description of the parameter, this description will be made available on the WYSIWYG editor
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56 * Parameter mandatory: Indicates if this particular parameter is mandatory, wiki macro will fail to execute if a mandatory parameter is missing
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58 Now we're going to extend our hello macro with a parameter. We will introduce a parameter named ~~greetUser~~ that will indicate if the greeting message should be tailored for current user viewing the page. The definition of the parameter is show below:
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60 {image:macro3.png}
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62 A macro parameter defined this way can be accessed from any scripting language within the macro code. For an example, we are going to utilize our ~~greetUser~~ parameter within hello macro as below:
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64 {image:macro4.png}
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66 As you might have realized already, direct binding of parameters is not supported at the moment. That is, you cannot access ~~greetUser~~ parameter with *$greetUser*. Instead you must use *$context.macro.params.greetUser*. We plan to introduce some form of direct parameter binding in near future.
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68 Finally, we can test our new version of hello macro with the following invocation:
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70 {code}
71 {{hello greetUser="true"/}}
72 {code}
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81 1.1 WYSIWYG Access
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83 A wiki macros is treated just like any other rendering macro in the system. As such, the moment you save your wiki macro it will be available to the users through the WYSIWYG editor's *Insert Macro* dialog box:
84
85 {image:macro2.png}
86
87 1.1 Scripting Tips
88
89 Following are few useful hints if you plan to do advanced scripting inside your wiki macros:
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91 * Access parameters: Use the context object (Ex. $context.macro.params.param1)
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93 * Access macro body (if your macro defines one): Use the context object (Ex. $context.macro.content)
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95 * Access [MacroTransformationContext>http://svn.xwiki.org/svnroot/xwiki/platform/core/trunk/xwiki-rendering/xwiki-rendering-api/src/main/java/org/xwiki/rendering/transformation/MacroTransformationContext.java]: Use the context object (Ex. $context.macro.context)

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