Version 95.1 by Thomas Mortagne on 2018/05/11
Show last authors
1 {{box cssClass="floatinginfobox" title="**Contents**"}}
2 {{toc/}}
3 {{/box}}
4
5 Wiki macros allow macro authors to develop reusable and distributable macro modules. There is no java code involved; hence no compiling or packaging. The macro author simply needs to create a wiki page according to a particular specification and that's all!
6
7 This page is a tutorial but you can also access the [[reference documentation for the Wiki Macro feature>>doc:extensions:Extension.WikiMacroStore.WebHome]].
8
9 = Macro Visibility and Rights =
10
11 There are 3 levels of visibility for a macro:
12
13 * ##Global##
14 ** on main wiki the macro will be available in all the pages of all the (sub)wikis. Requires the macro author to have **Programming Rights**
15 ** on subwiki synonym of ##Current Wiki## visibility
16 * ##Current Wiki##, which means that the macro will be available in all the pages of the wiki the macro is in. Requires the macro author to have **Admin Rights**
17 * ##Current User##, which means that the macro will only be available to the user who is its author. No special rights required.
18
19 == Using protected API in wiki macros ==
20
21 Also, if the macro needs to use [[protected API>>platform:DevGuide.Scripting||anchor="HXWikiCoreAccess"]], the author of the macro will need to have programming rights. Note that the macro will always be executed with the rights of its author, and not with the rights of the author of the calling document (the document using the macro). Specifically, if the macro uses protected API, only the macro author needs to have programming rights, not all the authors of the documents that call this macro.
22
23 = Hello Macro =
24
25 We are going to start with a very simple xwiki/2.0 wiki macro which prints a greeting message to the document content. It isn't a very useful macro but the idea is to get you familiarised with the wiki macro creation process.
26
27 == Definition ==
28
29 Wiki macros are defined using objects of type ##XWiki.WikiMacroClass##. You define a wiki macro by creating a new wiki page and attaching to it an object of type ##XWiki.WikiMacroClass##.
30
31 {{warning}}
32 There can be only one object of type ##XWiki.WikiMacroClass## per wiki page (if you add more only the first will be used).
33 {{/warning}}
34
35
36 This class contains the following fields:
37
38 * Macro id: Id of the macro to be used by users when invoking your macro from wiki code
39 * Macro name: Name of the macro to be displayed on the wysiwyg editor
40 * Macro description: A short description of the macro to be displayed on the WYSIWYG editor
41 * Default category: Default category under which this macro should be listed
42 * Supports inline mode: Whether the macro can be used in an inline context or not
43 * Macro content type: Whether this macro should support a body or not
44 * Content description: A short description about the macro's content to be displayed on the WYSIWYG editor
45 * Macro code: The actual wiki code that will be evaluated when the macro is executed, can be any xwiki content (should be in the same syntax as the document)
46
47 Now we can define our hello macro as shown below:
48
49 [[image:macro1.png]]
50
51 == Invocation ==
52
53 A wiki macro can be invoked just like any other macro is invoked. Since we are writing a xwiki/2.0 wiki macro, we can invoke our **hello macro** as below:
54
55 {{code}}
56 {{hello/}}
57 {{/code}}
58
59 And if you view the result it would say "Hello World!" (of course).
60
61 == Content ==
62
63 If macro content is used, it can be shown by executing the following velocity code in the macro body:
64
65 {{code language="none"}}
66 {{velocity}}$xcontext.macro.content{{/velocity}}
67 {{/code}}
68
69 For more details, see the [[Scripting Tips section below>>platform:DevGuide.WikiMacroTutorial||anchor="HScriptingTips"]].
70
71 == Parameters ==
72
73 Introducing a parameter to a wiki macro is pretty straight forward; you simply need to add an object of type ##XWiki.WikiMacroParameterClass## into your wiki macro document (one object per parameter). This class contains several fields that allow you to define your parameter clearly:
74
75 * Parameter name: Name of the parameter, users will refer this name when invoking your macro with parameters
76 * Parameter description: A short description of the parameter, this description will be made available on the WYSIWYG editor
77 * Parameter mandatory: Indicates if this particular parameter is mandatory, wiki macro will fail to execute if a mandatory parameter is missing
78
79 Now we're going to extend our **hello macro** with a parameter. We will introduce a parameter named //greetUser// that will indicate if the greeting message should be tailored for the current user viewing the page. The definition of the parameter is shown below:
80
81 [[image:macro3.png]]
82
83 A macro parameter defined this way can be accessed from any scripting language within the macro code. For example, we are going to utilize our //greetUser// parameter within **hello macro** as shown below:
84
85 [[image:macro4.png]]
86
87 As you might have realized already, direct binding of parameters is not supported at the moment. That is, you cannot access //greetUser// parameter with **$greetUser**. Instead you must use **$xcontext.macro.params.greetUser**. We plan to introduce some form of direct parameter binding in near future.
88
89 Finally, we can test our new version of **hello macro** with the following invocation:
90
91 {{code language="none"}}
92 {{hello greetUser="true"/}}
93 {{/code}}
94
95 If you want to call the new version of the **hello macro** with a parameter from a variable you will need to wrap the call in a velocity macro like this:
96
97 {{code language="none"}}
98 {{velocity}}
99 #set ($greet = true)
100 {{hello greetUser="$greet"/}}
101 {{/velocity}}
102 {{/code}}
103
104 == Translations ==
105
106
107
108 When your macro is ready, you might want to provide the description of the macro and its parameters in different languages. For that, you need to create a set of translation keys and values (as described [[here>>platform:DevGuide.InternationalizingApplications]]) and then just use the following convention for the keys you add in this storage (no modification is needed on the macro itself, the association of the translations to the macro is done based on a convention of the form of the translation keys):
109
110 {{code}}
111 rendering.macro.<macro id>.name=Name of the macro, displayed in the macros list in the macros wizard
112 rendering.macro.<macro id>.description=Description of the macro, displayed as a help in the macros list in the macros wizard
113
114 rendering.macro.<macro id>.parameter.<parameter name>.name=Name of the macro parameter, to be displayed in the form for the macro settings in the macros wizard
115 rendering.macro.<macro id>.parameter.<parameter name>.description=Description of the macro parameter, to be displayed as a help in the form for the macro settings in the macros wizard
116 {{/code}}
117
118 Don't forget to make sure that the visibility of the translations is the same as the visibility of the macro, so that anywhere you use the macro you also have the translations.
119
120 In our example, french translations would be something like this:
121
122 {{code}}
123 rendering.macro.hello.name=Macro pour dire bonjour
124 rendering.macro.hello.description=Ceci est une macro qui va dire "Bonjour" a l'utilisateur
125 rendering.macro.hello.parameter.greetUser.name=Personnaliser le message
126 rendering.macro.hello.parameter.greetUser.description=Personnaliser le message pour l'utilisateur courant en train de visualiser la page. Les valeurs possibles sont "true" (oui) et "false" (non).
127 {{/code}}
128
129 = WYSIWYG Access =
130
131 A wiki macros is treated just like any other rendering macro in the system. As such, the moment you save your wiki macro it will be available to the users through the WYSIWYG editor's **Insert Macro** dialog box:
132
133 [[image:macro2.png]]
134
135 [[image:macro5.png]]
136
137 == Special code for WYSIWYG edit mode ==
138
139 Even in edit mode, the WYSIWYG editor will execute the macro and feed the result back into the document. If your macro use some JSX, these will not be loaded. But, if your macro produce some Javascript that use those JSX or manipulate the document's DOM (injecting new elements, moving existing elements, removing elements, etc.), you may want to protect the content in WYSIWYG edit mode in order to prevent the performed transformation to get saved. Here is how you can prevent this behavior:
140
141 {{code language="velocity"}}
142 {{velocity}}
143 #if("$xcontext.action" != "edit")
144 {{html}}
145 <script type="text/javascript">
146 //<![CDATA[
147 ... some javascript ...
148 // ]]>
149 </script>
150 {{/html}}
151 #end
152 ##
153 ## Rest of the code.
154 {{/velocity}}
155 {{/code}}
156
157 = Scripting Tips =
158
159 Following are a few useful hints if you plan to do advanced scripting inside your wiki macros:
160
161 * Access parameters: Use the context object (Ex. ##$xcontext.macro.params.param1##)
162 * Access macro body (if your macro defines one): Use the context object (Ex. ##$xcontext.macro.content##)
163 * Access [[MacroTransformationContext>>http://svn.xwiki.org/svnroot/xwiki/platform/core/trunk/xwiki-rendering/xwiki-rendering-api/src/main/java/org/xwiki/rendering/transformation/MacroTransformationContext.java]]: Use the context object (Ex. ##$xcontext.macro.context##)
164 * Since 2.4M1, it's possible to directly return the desired list of rendering blocks without having to render them first to let them be parsed back by the macro transformation. The benefits are that it could be a lots quicker and most of all it means supporting syntax which does not provide any renderer. It also makes it possible to generate some XDOM which is impossible to write in any some syntax. For example the following wiki macro is generating a LinkBlock targeting a relative URL:(((
165 {{code language="groovy"}}
166 {{groovy}}
167 import java.util.Collections;
168 import org.xwiki.rendering.listener.Link;
169 import org.xwiki.rendering.block.WordBlock;
170 import org.xwiki.rendering.block.LinkBlock;
171
172 ref link = new Link();
173 link.setReference("/xwiki/edit/Main/WebHome");
174 link.setType(LinkType.URI);
175
176 ref linkBlock = new LinkBlock(Collections.singletonList(new WordBlock("Edit home page"))), link, false);
177
178 xcontext.macro.result = Collections.singletonList(linkBlock)
179 {{/groovy}}
180
181 This text will not appear in the result.
182 {{/code}}
183 )))
184 * If you are using ##$xcontext.macro.content## in your velocity macro, that content will not be able to support scripting, since nested scripting is not supported. To workaround that limitation, thanks to the above, you may do the parsing yourself using the rendering service. Here is a small sample:(((
185 {{code languege="velocity"}}
186 {{velocity output="no"}}
187 ## get the macro content in a velocity string
188 #set($wikiresult = $xcontext.macro.content)
189 ## Add a wrapping div as a sample of the action of this macro
190 #set($wikiresult = "(% class='newstyle' %)((($wikiresult)))")
191 ## parse the string and return the resulting blocks
192 #set($xcontext.macro.result = $services.rendering.parse($wikiresult, $xwiki.getCurrentContentSyntaxId()).getChildren())
193 {{/velocity}}
194 {{/code}}
195 )))
196 * Since 9.1RC1 you can access the macro descriptor using ##$xcontext.macro.descriptor## binding. It returns a ##org.xwiki.rendering.macro.descriptor.MacroDescriptor## Java object.
197
198 = Troubleshooting =
199
200 == A Pitfall of Optional Parameters ==
201
202 {{info}}
203 This pitfall has been fixed in XWiki 2.2
204 {{/info}}
205
206 There is a common pitfall for using optional paramters. The following macro code contains a not so obvious bug:
207
208 {{code languege="velocity"}}
209 {{velocity}}
210 #set($greetUser=$xcontext.macro.params.greetUser)
211 #if ("true" == $greetUser && "XWiki.XWikiGuest" != "$xcontext.user" )
212 Hello $xwiki.user.email!
213 #else
214 Hello world!
215 #end
216 <img src="$image" width="$width" />
217 {{/code}}
218
219 If we invoke it twice in a row:
220
221 {{code}}
222 {{hello greetUser="true" /}}
223 {{hello /}}
224 {{/code}}
225
226 The second invocation will not print "Hello World!" as we'd expect. But it will print the same result as the first invocation. The reasons are:
227
228 * Macro parameters are implemented as global parameters. So, they remain the same across multiple macro invocations.
229 * If ##$xcontext.macro.params.greetUser## contains "null", it will not be assigned to ##$greetUser##. This is different from C/C++ or Java.
230
231 So in order to get around it, you can use:
232
233 {{code}}
234 #set($greetUser="$!xcontext.macro.params.greetUser")
235 {{/code}}

About

About

Support

Platform

User Guide

Admin Guide

Developer Guide

Projects

XWiki

Extensions

Other

Contribute

Status

Practices

Under the Hood

Get Involved

Get Connected