Create a resources file - two questions

normschaef

All:

I've searched for an answers for these on the forum, but couldn't find them. If they're here can you point me to the topics?

Q1 - In other programming, many of the common items (strings, image files, layouts) are contained in a resources files. To assist my faculty, I'm working on a number of help popups or tool tips to be dynamically generated on the touch panel. However, I'd rather not have to open and re-compile source code simply to correct a spelling error, clean-up wording or similar correction. I'd simply like a resource file with my help strings that I can edit in notepad and have it called at runtime.

I thought the answer would be, as in php and others, to create an include file. I figured I could call it with #INCLUDE, but I can't seem to create a file that simply contains....

DEFINE_CONSTANT
ttMakeCall = 'Here's the tooltip that tells faculty how to place a call.'
ttConference = 'Here's the tooltip with hints about conferencing'
.
.
.

Do I need to add #IF_NOT_DEFINED for all my touch panels as part of the include?


Q2 - What would be the best way to add a CR/LF to a multi-line help file?
1. Here's step one. (CR/LF)
2. How about step two (CR/LF)
3. If you're here, you've gone too far.

TIA for all your help.

GregG

1) Since netlinx has to be compiled in order to pick up changes to include files, no variation of that method will work in your case. I'd recommend reading/writing a file on the master using the file_* functions, and the users can access that file using ftp. I wrote a module that loads xml files from the master's internal disk for dealing with large amounts of dynamic data. The main thing is that you will need a "reload" button somewhere in the admin pages on the panel so that it will pull the updated file without needing a reboot. I also usually include an in-panel editor to make changes from right on the touch panel. Pretty much any file load/save function you write can work for this kind of thing and it doesn't need to be as complex as full xml compliance.

2) The send_command to update text on a touch panel will read the pipe character " | " as a CR/LF equivalent so a string like this: "one|word|per|line" will do what it says.

FYI - If you are capturing user data from the touch panel keyboard and saving that out to a file, you might want to filter for CR/LF, since that will come back as part of the keyboard input, and translate it into " | " to put in the save file.

normschaef

Thanks, Greg. Your comment about using the various file functions sounds like similar to the solution I'm looking for. I'll give it a try. Thanks again.