Suggestion: Text string tokens

[Matthew-Wise]

I was wondering what you think extending the text string data type to have a token selector that can then be parsed out.

e.g

items X would be input as -> items [#count] instead of relying on the user inputting this have it selectable in some form.

In the case above it would then allow X items to be possible in a translated situation.

Happy to put the work in of course, just not sure on a UI. I see the tokens maybe been a DataListSource?

[leekelleher]

Hiya @Matthew-Wise!

I'm not fully following how the feature would work.

My thinking so far... with the Text Input editor, you'd enter text along with a token, from your example [#count]. But what is count? Where does that come from? What's the context?

I'm not sure how it relates to IDataListSource yet, but that may be clearer with discussion.

[Matthew-Wise]

count could be anything it's more of a placeholder. In case of count it could be how many items are in a basket for example.

may not be the best UI but hopefully shows what I mean

So clicking on count or token x would add that placeholder which in code you would replace with the actual value in the same way that magic strings (should) in Umbraco forms - https://our.umbraco.com/documentation/add-ons/umbracoforms/developer/Magic-Strings/

[leekelleher]

@Matthew-Wise OK, gotcha. 👍

The question to myself, is this something I need on my own client projects / want to develop / want to support / etc... and the honest answer is no, not really... and that's more about me than poo-poo'ing the idea. I like the idea, it has potential!

Some thoughts I'd had...

For the UI, thinking about Vendr's dictionary insert button for their textbox fields.

It'd open an overlay, with all the available (pre-configured) tokens, (even all the magic strings). The user would select one, the token is added to the textstring field. Save & publish, all good.

The value-converter would scan the value for tokens, matching any with the pre-configured ones... if found, replace the token.

In terms of configuration, it could be a provider-based model - some interface comprising of the token's name/alias and a corresponding method to replace/transform the token. All of the magic string ones (e.g. Request, Session, Cookie, et al) could come as default. Hmmm. 🤔

Sounds like a good one to hack on and explore, but like I say, not something I'm (currently) wanting for Contentment itself.

[leekelleher]

This idea has made me remember the Shortcodes package I did years ago. 🤔
https://our.umbraco.com/packages/developer-tools/shortcodes/
https://github.com/leekelleher/umbraco-shortcodes

[leekelleher]

💡 Once the ideas start flowing...

Thinking about the shortcodes gets me thinking about Triple Tags, something that was popular back with Flickr (in the day). The format is like this...

[namespace]:[predicate]=[value]

So say for getting the value from Session["count"] could be reflected as a triple tag...

[umb:session=count]

or forgetting triple tags, could be in the UDI (URI) schema? e.g. umb://session/count?

Of course, [#count] is more concise, but the prefixes (for the other magic strings), do limit their scope. 🤔

Anyway, just brain dumping. 🧠

[leekelleher]

Another follow up... (I'll stop spamming shortly.)

I wrote a blog post last year about
using ClientDependency Filters to manipulate HTML, which could be hooked into to scan & parse any tokens/shortcodes. 🤔

The beauty of doing this at module Filter level is that any tokens in the markup could be replaced/transformed. It wouldn't be isolated to an editor's value-converter. It'd open it up for other areas, such as a TinyMCE plugin.

(OK, I'll stop now.)

[leekelleher]

@Matthew-Wise Just spotted this in the package repo on Our... https://our.umbraco.com/packages/backoffice-extensions/editor-with-replaceable-tokens/. (I've never tried it, think it's for v7.11)

(Also, worried that I scared you off with my previous responses?)

[Matthew-Wise]

I had not seen it :D and is a better solution that I created for a client in v8 👍.

Scared off no just not sure where to go next with the idea 🤔