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blocks:app-note:textfile [2021-05-10 10:45] mattias |
blocks:app-note:textfile [2021-05-10 15:18] (current) mattias [The text file] |
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- | Work In Progress | ||
====== Use a text file to provide some text data to Blocks ====== | ====== Use a text file to provide some text data to Blocks ====== | ||
- | This application note shows how you can use a list of text from a .TXT file as a dynamic | + | This application note shows how you can use a list of text from a .TXT file as a data source and use that in Blocks. The data in this example lists the capital cities |
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==== Installation and Usage ==== | ==== Installation and Usage ==== | ||
- | You need a computer with a running blocks server and a web browser to run this application note. Here's the {{ : | + | You need a computer with a running blocks server and a web browser to run this application note. Here's the {{: |
- Start Blocks. | - Start Blocks. | ||
- Open the Blocks editor using the Admin button. | - Open the Blocks editor using the Admin button. | ||
- | - Log in using the proper credentials (default | + | - Log in using the proper credentials (default |
- | - Open a second browser window to the same address as the editor window, but replace /edit/xxx with /spot to act as a simulated | + | - Open a second browser window to the same address as the editor window but replace /edit/xxx with /spot? |
- | - Back in the Blocks editor, double-click the display spot named Lobby. | + | - A list of cities |
- | - Assign | + | - Try the shuffle button to see how the user script shuffles the order. |
- | - The list of visitors | + | |
- | {{ : | + | {{: |
- | There are two blocks in this application note. The " | ||
- | ===== Behind | + | ==== The Block ==== |
+ | |||
+ | Open up the block in the editor to see how the list has been composed. | ||
+ | The root block is a composition with a scroller and a button. | ||
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+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The scroller uses the child replication feature in Blocks and is bound to the user script TextList indexed property // | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Inside the scroller all we got is a text-block bound to the relative property //line// | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | From this template item, all the other Text blocks will automatically be created in runtime on the client. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== The Tasks ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | Open the task manager and look at the example tasks. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The LogTexts task will log the whole list of items one by one. This is done with a loop that loops though the index one by one and logs the lines value of all index positions. | ||
+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Shuffle task will just trigger the callable // | ||
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+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The last task is just picking a random item and logging it, like it would in a raffle game. As you can see we can log the same index //[0]// every run. Since the list is shuffled when the task run the result will be a random city in the log. | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== The text file ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | The file we use as source is a plain text file with a carriage return in between every data entry, the file is located at the Blocks default file location / | ||
+ | If a SimpleFile is used to read a text file and the file is kept at the default location only the filename must be specified. If you want to user some other folder the full file path must be used. | ||
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+ | :!: This user script can only access files stored locally | ||
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+ | {{: | ||
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+ | |||
+ | ===== The user script ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | As with all user scripts the script is kept in the Pixilab-Blocks-root under / | ||
+ | As you may recall Blocks scripts usually come in pairs with one .js and one .ts file. The js file is what Blocks ultimately uses and the .ts file is the source file. Please read the [[blocks: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The name of the text file to read is hardcoded in the script. If you want to change this, you will need to have a Blocks developers environment set up on your computer. | ||
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+ | {{: | ||
+ | |||
+ | If you would want to run two instances of the same user script you would have to duplicate the .ts file and change the name of the copy to something unique. The name of a user script and the name of the export class must be identical since blocks will find the export class based on filename. | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{: |