Brian,
I totally sympathize with your situation. As great of a system as I think Bricolage is, I also think it is naturally complicated to try to learn because of it's capabilities.
When you ask the system to burn an element, the template is called within that context.
When you ask the system to call a template, it doesn't assume that just because there is an element by the same name, that element should be used. Imagine the interesting results if there were more than one element on the page by the same name. How would it know which element to use? I have lots of story elements that contain lots of different paragraphs, for example a paragraph might be inside of a list item, or it might be inside of an image with a caption, or it might be just a paragraph.
This list has always been very supportive, and I still have a lot to learn myself. It makes it much easier to approach learning Bricolage when you know there are people you can turn to in time of need.
Adam
-----Original Message-----
From: users@lists.bricolagecms.org [mailto:users@lists.bricolagecms.org] On Behalf Of Brian Percival
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2011 3:32 PM
To: users@lists.bricolagecms.org
Subject: Re: Container and Fields not available from inside template associated with Element Type
Thanks Adam,
Any assistance is surely welcome. As I said, I'm very new to Bricolage and I've found very little as far as tutorials on Bricolage. I actually did see the display_element method in the api and I will give it a try. I just made the assumption that an element template for an element type would be in the context of that element. Oh well. live and learn. Thank goodness for this mailing list!
Brian
On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Adam Wilson <adam@rfxtechnologies.com>wrote:
> Brian,
> Sounds like David might have insider information that is far better
> than I what I am about to pass along.
>
> However, if I read through your description correctly, it sounds like
> you are calling the new template you created using % $m->comp('/util/
> fb_metadata.mc'), but if you want the context to be the element that
> the template is supposed to apply to, I think you have to call it
> using $burner->chain_next, or to be more judicious in what you are
> doing, since it is buried in a utility template, wrap it in the foreach statement.
>
> % foreach my $e ($story->get_elements("fb_metadata ")) {
> % $burner->display_element($e);
> % }
>
> Adam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: users@lists.bricolagecms.org
> [mailto:users@lists.bricolagecms.org]
> On Behalf Of Brian Percival
> Sent: Monday, September 05, 2011 2:01 PM
> To: users@lists.bricolagecms.org
> Subject: Re: Container and Fields not available from inside template
> associated with Element Type
>
> Thanks for the reply David.
> I'm very new at Bricolage so I'll try my best to answer your questions.
> Yes, I edited an existing story and added a fb_metadata and an fb_image.
>
> I have a template for my story element. This entire system has
> actually been around.
> This is for Education Week which I know you have access to our system.
> Since I've inherited this, there is a utility template that is
> included in the story template.
> I'm not sure why they made it a utility template. It writes out all
> the pages metadata.
>
> My template (fb_metadata) writes out a bunch of metadata elements for
> Facebook and so it just made sense for me to include it in the other
> metadata template and also to save time not having to go back and
> include it in all the other templates.
>
> I created my templates as an element template mainly because I thought
> I'd have access to the elements and fields, Interestingly, although
> the admin screen shows the fb_metadata as the Key Name, the
> $element->get_key_name actually shows ew_story as the value.
>
> perhaps it would just be easier to add it to each story template in
> each of our output channel?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian Percival
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 11:13 PM, David E. Wheeler
> <david@kineticode.com
> >wrote:
>
> > On Sep 2, 2011, at 12:56 PM, Brian Percival wrote:
> >
> > > I have an Element Template associated with an element type.
> > > When I edit the template, I see the element shown "Key Name:
> fb_metadata"
> > > and the one field I have listed "Field Elements: fb_image".
> > > A simple call like this should work: my $fb_image =
> > > $element->get_value("fb_image"); $element SHOULD be fb_metadata
> > > and this call should return the value in
> > that
> > > field but it doesn't.
> > > Any suggestions?
> >
> > Have you created a story with an fb_metadata element and an fb_image
> value?
> > Do you have a template for your story element type the calls
> > $burner->chain_next?
> >
> > > This template is called from a utility template like so:
> > > % $m->comp('/util/fb_metadata.mc');
> >
> > Why called by a utility template? And from what template it it called?
> >
> > > They only way I've been able to access the fb_metadata is to
> > > actually
> > pass
> > > it into the template call which really doesn't make sense because
> > > I
> > should
> > > already be in the template for the element.
> > >
> > > // This works but shouldn't be needed my $metadata =
> > > $story->get_container('ew_metadata'); // Metadata
> > container
> > > that fb_metadata is in
> > > my $fb_metadata = $metadata->get_container("fb_metadata"); // Get
> > > the fb_metadata container if ($fb_metadata) {
> > > $m->comp('/util/fb_metadata.mc', obj => $fb_metadata); // call
> > > the template and pass in the fb_metadata object.
> > > }
> > >
> > > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > What does $element->get_key_name give you? That will be the name of
> > the current element.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > David
>