Graphics

Hello,

Is there a way to display an image, if its filename is based on what is appearing in a field populated by XML? For example, either LIB, PC, NDP or GRN could show up as party names, from the XML. Is there a way to have a LIB.png/PC.png/NDP.png etc. show up, via scripting of some kind, depending on what is currently being sent via XML?

I figured that the XML file for our election, that was sent earlier, had a set-in-stone order of candidates - now that the test XML feed is running, the candidates are automatically being reordered, first candidate has the most votes. I had made a datalinq CSV file with image pathnames that corresponded to the candidate order in this original XML, now it won't work.

So one of our problems was solved, and more were created in the process. But that's the way it goes I guess

Thanks!

Yes, you could create 3 materials for the parties and name the materials LIB, PC, and NDP. Then create a hidden text object for each candidate that you will datalink to the party field. A script in the OnOnline event for each hidden text object (or it could be in OnSetText but the script would need to be different) would then be used to assign the correct material to a quad for each candidate.

It would be something like this in OnOnline (loops over 3 candidates)



dim i as integer

dim party as xpTextObject

dim quad as xpBaseObject

dim mat as xpMaterial

' loop over 3 candidates

for i = 1 to 3

self.GetObjectByName("Party" & i, party)

self.GetObjectByName("Quad" & i, quad)

if engine.GetMaterialByName(party.text, mat) then

quad.SetMaterial(0, mat)

end if

next



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Thankyou so much, I'll give that a try.

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I'm looking at the script editor, and I don't see OnOnline, I see OnSetText, OnAddText, and OnSetLine. Is that what you meant?

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No. You need to right click on the scene thumbnail in the scene manager and choose edit script events.

You probably right clicked on a text object, so you are editing the script for a specific object. You need to edit the script for the overall scene.

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That's exactly what I had done, I had clicked on the text object.

Now it works perfectly! Thanks!

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Okay - I'm being asked for something else... our candidate names come in 2 fields, Firstname and Lastname. How would I take the first initial of the first name, a period, a space, and then the last name, and put it into one field?

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This will loop over 3 candidates and look for hidden objects "FirstName1", "LastName1", "FirstName2", etc and copy them to "Combined1", "Combined2", etc.. Put it in OnOnline.

dim firstname as xpTextObject

dim lastname as xpTextObject

dim combined as xpTextObject

dim i as integer

for i = 1 to 3

self.GetObjectByName("FirstName" & i, firstname)

self.GetObjectBYName("LastName" & i, lastname)

self.GetObjectByName("Combined" & i, combined)

combined.text = firstname.text(0) & ". " & lastname.text

next



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So I have combined both scripts in the one page, and I renamed the 2nd script's for-next variable as "j" because "i" was already used in the previous script.

I have left the invisible fields visible for now, to see how everything is working. In the Combined fields, I am only getting last names in fields 2-4. For the first candidate, the Firstname field populates, then it puts an initial and no last name in the first Combined field. Any thoughts on what is going wrong? Thanks!

So here is what I have presently in the OnOnline script area:

dim i as integer

dim party as xpTextObject

dim quad as xpBaseObject

dim mat as xpMaterial

' loop over 4 candidates

for i = 1 to 4

self.GetObjectByName("Party" & i, party)

self.GetObjectByName("PartyLogo" & i, quad)

if engine.GetMaterialByName(party.text, mat) then

quad.SetMaterial(0, mat)

end if

next

dim firstname as xpTextObject

dim lastname as xpTextObject

dim combined as xpTextObject

dim j as integer

for j = 1 to 4

self.GetObjectByName("FirstName" & j, firstname)

self.GetObjectByName("LastName" & j, lastname)

self.GetObjectByName("Combined" & j, combined)

combined.text = firstname.text(0) & ". " & lastname.text

next

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Your script looks correct.

Can you send a link to your project and data so we could see what is wrong?

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It's working now.

I was getting the project ready to save and post somewhere, then it started working perfectly. I might have done something wrong with the sequence, so that the %relid% wouldn't work, or the folks who are sending the test XML had changed something.

Either way, it works now, and I'm very happy with it. Thanks for your help, Brian!

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Cool.. The only potential problem I could see would be if a candidate doesn't have a "firstname" in the data source that might cause everything to fail...

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something like this might be better to handle the no firstname case..



if len(firstname.text) > 0 then

combined.text = firstname.text(0) & ". " & lastname.text

else

combined.text = lastname.text

end if



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