sectiontree names and urls in delimited list or xml?

[johnnycarwash]

hey ho

is there any way (undocumented netquotevars?) to get actinic to autogenerate either:

a) a flat, delimited list of the sectiontree names and urls, or
b) an xml dump of the same?

currently, sectiontreename and sectiontreeurl return javascript files, which create a new array, but not via a valid java method:

var section_tree_names = new createArray(num)

xml would be preferable, due to the ease of parsing child nodes. any ideas?

thanks

[NormanRouxel]

I think those JavaScript structures are all you'll get.

As the section structure is hierarchical (a flat-file just wouldn't work) you'll probaly have to do a bit of recursive JavaScript to traverse these trees.

I've used these .js files for several years to automatically generate the completely different data structures that two DHTML cascading menu systems require.

You can see the code on www.drillpine.biz (and yes, it's recursive - so it may not read too well).

Norman

p.s. You mentioned Java. It is possible to access Java data structures from within a JavaScript program (and vise-versa with more limitations). So it should be possible to get the Actinic section data into a Java applet via a little bit of JavaScript.

[johnnycarwash]

hi norman

thanks for your reply. sincei posted that, i've actually ditched what i was going to do, since i don't have the time, given the limits of the current contract, and i'm instead using your very own nortree, which is working out quite nicely.

the reason i mentioned java was because in it (and in javascript as well), a new array would be created with:

myArray = new Array ();
myArray[1] = "cat";

etc. as opposed to new createArray. this happens to be exactly the same in actionscript, which is the programming language for flash.

looking at the array structure in the .js file, it would have been useless anyway; since it develops multidimensional arrays, but gives the embedded arrays labels, which actionscript (currently) can't deal with.

i've already developed a neat little flash button that sits in the act_navigationitem.html file and reads each section title and link, displays the appropriate icon, and links to the correct url. and of course, is nice and fancy, and saves having to preload mouseOver gif images.

so, seems like you provided the solution anyway. cheers.

[NormanRouxel]

Glad you found a solution.

That "CreateArray()" is just an Actinic written JavaScript function (it's in actiniccore.js) that creates the section type structure array.

If you look at the NorTree code you'll see that I re-define it before invoking the sectiontree scripts. This makes it much simpler than the Actinic version as I don't need all the properties.

Norman