An ACS component is a page or a part of a spip page skeleton you can configure by your website interface, without editing any file.

Composant Fond

Webmaster, web-designer

Webmaster or web-designer configure appearence and working mode of the website by setting ACS and ACS choosen components from private area Configuration menu, submenu Configure website.

First, configure general options for all the site (by configuring Fond component, in Cat model), choose which optionnal components to activate, and then insert its in container components like Entete, Col1, or Col3, which respectively define optionnals components inserted as page header, column one, or column three of Cat model, a three-columns model.

Developpers

A component is an object, in programming terms, that comply with:
 encapsulation: all about one component is in its component directory.
 polymorphism: property names are unified for all components; appearance and functiunalities of one component can vary upon context or container; etc.
 inheritage: a component can inherit some properties from another component.

On the public site, a component is a simple piece of Spip skeleton. On the private area, it is an object with web-configurable properties.

Insert an ACS component in a Spip skeleton

All active ACS model components can be included to Spip skeletons pages with the Spip tag <INCLURE> :
<INCLURE{fond=composants/<component>/<sub-component>}>

Components allows parameters:

In these sample, passing #SELF enable Spip to distinguish caching rules. These astuce suits to get isolated Spip cache for "Ajaxified" components in Ajax mode, different from its container’s Spip cache.

Create or modify ACS component

Create a skeleton directory with a composants sub-directory, or directly create your customized composants sub-directory in your existing skeleton directory,, and copy/paste one or more components from an existing ACS model directory (/composants). Do not forget to create a composants/config.php file with your personnal list of available components.
Declare your skeleton’s directory in ACS (Administration pane), and your customized components will be automatically included instead of same-named components from the active ACS model.
Your skeletons may use components from the active ACS model, components inherited from these active ACS model modified by your own, and yours genuine new components.

Only one file is really mandatory to define a component, the composants/<composant>/ecrire/composant.xml file.

Component directories and filel:

 composants/composant : root

 composants/composant/composant.html : component skeleton
 composants/composant/composant.css.html : component stylesheet
 composants/composant/lang/ : component lang files (public area)
 composants/composant/composant.php : Optionnal class definition to implement pre-defined methods (like insert_head) for the component.
 composants/composant/composant_balises.php : Optionnal component’s Spip tags

 composants/composant/ecrire/ : elements for private area
 composants/composant/ecrire/composant.xml : component definition
 composants/composant/ecrire/lang/ : component lang files for private area
 composants/composant/ecrire/composant.php : Optionnal class definition définition optionnelle d’une classe to implement pre-defined methods (like afterUpdate) for the component.

 composants/composant/img_pack/ : images and icon of the component.

composant.xml file

The component "C" is define by its composant.xml file (directory composants/C of active skeleton). Component’s characteristics, parameters, and variables are defined in this file. Its syntax is copied from plugin.xml files in Spip.

 nom: component name (canonical name in the developper’s choosen language, preferentially between french, english, or esperanto)
 auteur: component’s authors
 version: component version
 version_acs_min: minimal ACS version.
 version_acs_max: version max for ACS.
 version_spip_min: minimal Spip version.
 version_spip_max: version max of Spip.

param:
 optionnel: true (nothing= false, by default),
or meta variable name (activation if variable value is "oui"),
or plugin plugin_name (activation if plugin plugin_name is active)
 preview: true (nothing= false, by default). Preview height if numeric.

variable:
 nom: variable name
 type: type of variable: img, color, textarea, widget ...
 valeur: default value. Can be an ACS variable name: in this case, default value is the ACS variable value.
 chemin: "variable path". Default path for image type variable. Relative path from $GLOBALS[’ACS_CHEMIN’] (accessible by tag #ACS_CHEMIN{mydir/myimage.png} from a skeleton).
 label: "non" to not display a label for this variable.

Example:

Component MyComponent define a color. These color is now usable everywhere in skeletons, as variable #CONFIG{acsMyComponentColor} (usually, a color will be used in the component’s stylesheet (composants/mycomponent/mycomponent.css.html).