UPDATED: Ready for Frontier 5!

Images Outside of Frontier

So you say you don't want to keep your images inside Frontier? Well, you've come to the right place.

This fat web page contains the imgFileRef script object.

Use the 'Get Page Data' command from the Scripts menu to copy imgFileRef into your object database.

Also available: info about fat pages and the Terms under which you can use this script.

Some people have been asking about keeping your images outside Frontier, but still being able to refer to them via something like imageRef.

Well, here it is. Introducing... the {imgFileRef ()} macro! <faint applause>

Scenario

You've got a graphics guy, who does Photoshop but would break out in hives if he touched Frontier. So you let him do all the graphics for a page, and keep them in a folder.

The site is in Frontier, so you want to automatically generate <img> tags without having to suck those images into the ODB all the time (because the graphics keep changing).

This macro will help you do that.

Important Parameters

imgName - the name of the image file. It MUST have the proper suffix. Required.

imgFolder - the partial path of the image folder, relative to the site's root folder. Optional, but if you don't use the parameter, you should define the image folder via a directive (which is probably the easiest if you use this macro alot). Here's the directive:

#imfFileRef_folder "subfolder:imgFolder:"

For example:

{imgFileRef ("kid.gif", imgFolder:"frontier:ii:images:")}

should produce a photo of one of my former students (and if it's a dead link, well, you've discovered a huge drawback to this macro--it's your job to make sure the image is there, if you move the site around...)

Cute kid, huh?

Other stuff

There are a whole bunch of other parameters which you can figure out on your own. They are the basic img tag params.... look at the script for more info...

Caching

This macro keeps a cache of image height/widths. By default the cache is on. The cache flushes whenever Frontier restarts. You can turn the cache on and off via this directive:

#imgFileRef_useCache true

This is a huge hack

I did it in a couple hours, and I don't expect it to work perfectly.

It doesn't support the rollsrc param or lowsrc param. I don't plan on adding features, but you are welcome to experiment with the code and do as you will.

This is mostly example code, proof of concept; it mostly works, no known problems. Please don't write and ask me to add features to this particular macro, though. Bug fixes are okay.

I hope you benefit from it, and learn how it works, and maybe improve it. It certainly could be improved.

View the Source: user.html.macros.imgFileRef

filsa.net: Frontier / Scripts / Linking Macros / Images Outside of Frontier