How to customise HTML output of XFormStatistics?

Vote:

Could anyone with more experience than me in "skinning" EPiServer controls give me some pointers on how I can customise the output of the HTML that XFormStatistics generates? Do I have to try and buffer the output on a pre-render event and then do string manipulation, or is there a better way? The output will be displayed on every page (within the template), so I need an efficient solution. Or, is XFormStatisitics not really suited to customised output, and if so, should I be extracting form results another way? Any ideas appreciated! /\dam

#13090

Jun 26, 2007 13:47

Vote:

Hi Adam! I'd use a ControlAdapter to override rendering, either by implementing a custom CreateChildControls() or a RenderChildren() and take care of the rendering myself. The "standard" CreateChildControls() adds childcontrols of type Table / Row / Cell, every voted alternative is represented by one row, where Cell1 holds the option name, Cell2 an array of images, either showing a total number of votes or the percentage and Cell3 the number/percentage. Regards, Johan Olofsson EPiServer AB

#15396

Jun 26, 2007 15:55

Vote:

Thanks Johan, I will have a play! Do you think there is any appreciable overhead to using this method? As noted, I'd be doing it for almost every page view across the site. /\dam

#15397

Jun 26, 2007 17:35

Vote:

The overhead should be minimal, as your rendering or createchildcontrols will be called _instead_ of the original controls methods. The alternative to parse the generated html and make inline modifications would probably be a lot less efficient performance wise. /johan

#15398

Jun 26, 2007 22:24

Vote:

I'm not having much luck implementing this unfortunately :-( Does anyone have a code sample they can point me to, showing how to override child controls of an EPiServer control? Thanks! /\dam

#15399

Jul 04, 2007 13:48

Vote:

Nah, you shouldn't have to "override" (technically speaking), rather provide a substitue control to take care of the rendering of another control. Check out the MSDN documentation on Control Adapters. If I can get them time, I'll try and see if I can hack a small sample for you. /johan

#15400

Jul 04, 2007 14:03

Vote:

Ok, heres a small sample showing how to overide default rendering of XFormStatistics. 1) Compile the below code to an assembly and put it in the EPiServer's /bin directory Note, you'll need to add references to the following assemblies: EPiServer.dll, EPiServer.XForms.dll andd EPiServer.BaseLibrary.dll


using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.Adapters;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using EPiServer;
using EPiServer.WebControls;
using EPiServer.XForms;
using EPiServer.XForms.WebControls;

namespace XFormX
{
    public class RenderSample : ControlAdapter
    {
        protected override void CreateChildControls()
        {
            XFormStatistics xformStat = Control as XFormStatistics;

            xformStat.Controls.Add( new LiteralControl("This is rendered using a ControlAdapter
"));
            foreach(XFormData formData in xformStat.Statistics)
            {
                xformStat.Controls.Add( new LiteralControl(String.Format( "Dateposted: {0}
", formData.DatePosted)));
            }
            xformStat.Controls.Add( new LiteralControl( "" ) );

        }
    }
}

2) Then, save the below xml into a file named 'something'.browser into the folder App_Browsers of your EPiServer directory. Create the App_Browsers directory if it doesnt alread exist.

Now, all rendering of XFormStatistics is done through our controladapter, which simply lists the dateposted for every post of the form - you may want to change this logic :) Regards, Johan Olofsson EPiServer AB

#15401

Jul 04, 2007 14:29

Vote:

This is incredibly helpful, thank you very much for taking the time to post an example! /\dam

#15402

Jul 05, 2007 10:30

Vote:

I can pretty much do what I need to do now, so thanks again. I was a little surprised at the internal data structure of XFormStatistics though. From the name, I expected it would store *totals* rather than individual responses. To output the results I am therefore looping through each FormData object, populating a SortedList as I go, and then outputting the totals from my SortedList. Is this a reasonable way of doing it, or am I missing a data structure hidden away somewhere in XFormStatistics?! :-) /\dam

#15403

Jul 05, 2007 13:25

Vote:

Yes, thats how XFormStatistics work its magic too :) It however internally uses an dictionary of FormFieldStatistic objects to keep track of votes. Below is a slight modification of the controladapter that presents the vote count for each field in the form:


using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.Adapters;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using EPiServer;
using EPiServer.WebControls;
using EPiServer.XForms;
using EPiServer.XForms.WebControls;

namespace XFormX
{
    public class RenderSample : ControlAdapter
    {
        protected override void CreateChildControls()
        {
            XFormStatistics xformStat = Control as XFormStatistics;

            Dictionary formFields = new Dictionary();

            foreach(XFormData d in xformStat.Statistics)
            {
                foreach(System.Xml.XmlNode n in d.Data.GetElementsByTagName( "instance" )[0].ChildNodes)
                {
                    String name = n.LocalName;
                    String val = HttpContext.Current.Server.HtmlEncode( n.InnerText );

                    if(!formFields.ContainsKey( name ))
                    {
                        FormFieldStatistic tmpStatistic = new FormFieldStatistic( name );
                        tmpStatistic.AddEmptyVote( val );
                        formFields.Add( n.LocalName, tmpStatistic );
                    }
                    ( (FormFieldStatistic)formFields[name] ).AddVote( val );
                }
            }

            // do something with 
            foreach(string key in formFields.Keys)
            {
                FormFieldStatistic ffs = formFields[key];
                Control.Controls.Add( new LiteralControl(String.Format("{0} : {1} votes
", ffs.FieldName, ffs.Votes.Count )));
            }
        }
    }
}

/johan

#15404

Jul 05, 2007 14:11