Choosing The Right Filtering Algorithm
If you are implementing Filter Control Components for Descriptions Panel or Generic Text Panel Sample Data fields containing references to external plaintext or HTML files then you should consider the following points:
| · | Choose appropriate file names that may be usefully searched using the default preg_match filtering algorithm.
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| · | Otherwise, if the file is not large, use the Sample Field Data Type Property to re-define the relevant Sample Data field to be of type File. This will cause the Pollstar100 Service to load the file and search its contents for the end-users' pattern.
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| · | Otherwise, if the file is large, then define a hidden Sample Data field containing key-words pertaining to the file and provide a Generic Filter Control to act on the hidden field value.
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Custom XML Files
A quick way of checking the basic integrity of your Custom XML file is to load it into your web-browser by double-clicking on it. This will flag any basic XML errors such as multiply defined attributes and non-matching opening and closing XML tags.
Commenting Out Components And Custom Properties
Whole Components can easily be removed from an Application by setting the Visible Property to false. A quick and dirty way to comment out individual Properties is to prepend the Property/attribute keyword with a dash, thus making it unrecognised by the system. For example, here the Opacity Property has been commented out:
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Design Your Custom Application Locally
When designing the look-and-feel of your Custom Pollstar100 Applications' end-user interface, keep the Pollstar100 Client, the Custom XML file and the main HTML document that embeds your Application all on the same development platform that you are using to edit the Custom XML file. This way, you can simply load the local HTML document into your web-browser and avoid having to first upload it to your webserver every time you want to see what the Application is looking like.
