Need custom 'include' behavior

Question

I have a copy of "Developing Extensions for Macromedia®
Dreamweaver® 8" but can't seem to figure out how to do what I
want. Please point me in the direction of anything that would help.
I'm working with a CMS that provides the ability to upload
html pages with it's own proprietary include functionality. The
behavior of the include tags is as follows:
***tag value***
where the tag value will either be a filename, such as
"header.shtml" or a CMS code, such as "NAVBAR" Tags can appear
anywhere in the file between the html tags, but can not nest
include constructs.
I want to build an extension that will enable the designtime
preview to resolve these tags and render the resulting code.
Resolving the tags would be inserting the contents of a filename
into page, or, in the case of a CMS code, inserting some mocked up
data that I've stored in a file that I'd configure the extension to
know about.
Can anyone help me get started?
Thanks
Pauli

Answer 1

Pauli,
Starting with DW MX, there is a mechanism to extend the SSI
functionality for Server Models. In the
Configuration/ServerBehaviors/
folder, take a look at these files:
- include_comment.edml
- include_directive.edml
- include_lock.edml
- include_tag.edml
The key is the "_includeUrl" suffix on the end of the
paramName. This is
documented somewhere in the Extending DW book.
I recommend creating a new .edml file for your new search
patterns (as
opposed to editing one of the existing files) to make your
extension
portable.
Warning: be careful with the number search patterns that you
add, and
the efficiency of these patterns as this will have an impact
on your
system performance. For example, avoid ".*" if at all
possible -- use
".*?" (minimum search) instead.
Hope this helps,
Randy
> I have a copy of "Developing Extensions for Macromedia?
Dreamweaver? 8" but
> can't seem to figure out how to do what I want. Please
point me in the
> direction of anything that would help.
>
> I'm working with a CMS that provides the ability to
upload html pages with
> it's own proprietary include functionality. The behavior
of the include tags
> is as follows:
>
> ***tag value***
>
> where the tag value will either be a filename, such as
"header.shtml" or a CMS
> code, such as "NAVBAR" Tags can appear anywhere in the
file between the html
> tags, but can not nest include constructs.
>
> I want to build an extension that will enable the
designtime preview to
> resolve these tags and render the resulting code.
Resolving the tags would be
> inserting the contents of a filename into page, or, in
the case of a CMS code,
> inserting some mocked up data that I've stored in a file
that I'd configure the
> extension to know about.