In this article I will describe how to implement and provide examples of use the jQuery plugin PageSlide within an XPage. This is a fairly simple plugin with very few parameters but provides an alternate method for displaying information to users

PageSlide.js

Demonstration

The XPages integration of PageSlide is demonstrated here

Download

The demonstration database can be downloaded from the link above or from here

Introduction

PageSlide by Scott Robin is a simple plugin which allows external content to be displayed in a sidebar on the page. There are only two parameters, direction (left or right) and modal (true or false).  It is really quite simple. As you will see my implementation does not use XPage XML markup to add resources or to activate the capability. I found that this caused issues in the browser. The capability works well using the example code from the website, applied in an XPage.

How does it work?

I added jQuery, the pageslide js library and the pageslide.css stylesheet to my database through the WebContents folder and added them to to my XPage via script and link tags.

		  <script src="js/jquery.pageslide.js"></script>
		  <script src="js/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script>
		  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/jquery.pageslide.css" />

The basic concept works like this:

• You create a link on the page
  • < a href=”xSomething.xsp” class=”aClass”>
• You select the link in question
  • $(“a.aClass”).
• You pageslide it
  • pageslide({direction: “left”, modal: false})

	<a href="xPageSlide_1.xsp" class="myClass">Display user information</a>
	<script>$("a.myClass").pageslide({ direction: "left", modal: false});</script>

When clicking on the link this produces the effect of opening xPageSlide_1.xsp in the right hand panel of the screen (direction: left moves everything to the left).
If the modal = true paramater is included then the “slide” can only be closed programmatically. This forces user interaction with the information. If not included or modal = false then clicking anywhere in the screen will make the slide disappear.

And that is pretty much it….. nothing complicated this week 🙂

More examples
I created a custom control with custom parameters so that the capability can be added to any page.

The example page contains a demo of this custom capability and it is build like this:

• A link with a dynamic href is added to the form along with
• A scriptBlock which adds the PageSlide capability to the link passing the custom parameters as necessary.

<xp:link escape="true" text="CompositeData example"
	id="compositeDataExample"
	value="${compositeData.content}" styleClass="marky">
</xp:link>
<xp:scriptBlock id="scriptBlock1">
	<xp:this.value><![CDATA[
		bModal = "#{compositeData.modal}"
		bModal == "false" ? false : true
		$("[id$=compositeDataExample]").pageslide(
			{ 	direction: "#{compositeData.direction}",
				modal: bModal
			});
	]]></xp:this.value>
</xp:scriptBlock>

The other example I created involves using sessionScope variables to look up information dynamically.

There is a hidden anchor tag on the form which is has PageSlide attached to it in a similar way as described above. It is hidden becasue we are going to “click” it programmatically when a user is selected in the comboBox.

<a href="xPageSlide_1.xsp" class="marky2" style="display:none">Display user information</a>
<script>$("a.marky2").pageslide({ direction: "right", modal: true });</script>

The combobox has a simple SSJS lookup formula showing the first column of the AllContacts view
#{javascript:@DbColumn(“”, “AllContacts”, 1)}

<xp:comboBox id="comboBox1" defaultValue="Pick a person">
	<xp:selectItem itemLabel="Pick a person" itemValue="Pick a person"></xp:selectItem><xp:selectItems>
		<xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:@DbColumn("", "AllContacts", 1)}]]></xp:this.value>
	</xp:selectItems>
	<xp:eventHandler event="onchange" submit="true" refreshMode="partial" refreshId="computedField1">
	</xp:eventHandler>
</xp:comboBox>

In the onChange event I perform a partial refresh of the computedField1. computedField1 looks like this and returns some JavaScript which triggers the link “.click()”

<xp:text escape="false" id="computedField1">
	<xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:var person = sessionScope.person=getComponent("comboBox1").getValue();
		var disp = "<script>$('a.marky2').click()</script>";
		disp2 = (person == "Pick a person" ? "" : disp);
		return disp2
	}]]>
	</xp:this.value>
</xp:text>

• If a person is picked the computed field is refreshed
  • The computed field sets a sessionScope variable based on the value selected
    • var person = sessionScope.person=getComponent(“comboBox1”).getValue()
  • The refreshed value contains a script tag which executes when the refresh is loaded.
    • var disp = “// “;
      disp2 = (person == “Pick a person” ? “” : disp);
      return disp2
  • $(‘a.marky2’).click() clicks the hidden link opening the page slide

The xPageSlide_1.xsp page takes the sessionScope variable and looks up the user’s information based on the variable set in the computedField1 above.

<xp:div id="div1" style="display:nonex">
				    <h2 style="color: white">User Information</h2>
				    <xp:br></xp:br><xp:br></xp:br>
					<xp:text escape="true" id="computedField1"><xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:var per = sessionScope.person;
@DbLookup(@DbName(), "vwContacts", per, 4)}]]></xp:this.value></xp:text>

					<xp:br></xp:br>
					<xp:br></xp:br>
					<xp:text escape="true" id="computedField5"><xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:var per1 = sessionScope.person;
@DbLookup(@DbName(), "vwContacts", per1, 5)}]]></xp:this.value></xp:text>
					<xp:br></xp:br>
					<xp:br></xp:br>
					<xp:text escape="true" id="computedField3"><xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:var per2 = sessionScope.person;
@DbLookup(@DbName(), "vwContacts", per2, 6)}]]></xp:this.value></xp:text>
					<xp:br></xp:br>					<xp:br></xp:br>
										<xp:button id="button1" value="Close" style="display: block">
		<xp:eventHandler event="onclick" submit="false">
			<xp:this.script><![CDATA[parent.$.pageslide.close()]]></xp:this.script>
		</xp:eventHandler></xp:button><xp:br></xp:br>

</xp:div>

and with a little styling we are done for a consistent look and feel

<style>
DIV {
    background-color: #333333;
    color: #FFFFFF;
    height: 100%;
    padding: 20px;
    position: fixed;
    top: 0;
    width: 260px;
    z-index: 999999;
}

H2 { color: white }
</style>

Conclusion

I could easily see myself using PageSlide if I wanted to use a hidden menu or if I wanted to have a status update bar running in the background of my webpage which was accessed and made visible to the user when they wanted it to be there.

This is certainly the simplest plugin I have written about, but this is a very elegant solution to displaying hidden information to a user on demand.

Demonstration

The XPages integration of PageSlide is demonstrated here