|
|
| Line 188: |
Line 188: |
|
| |
|
| Best method probably is to migrate to CumulusMX. Then first check your log on Webtag error and then look at your website or reports - wherever you use your Webtags - and check your date/time formats. Then modify where you think it is required. | | Best method probably is to migrate to CumulusMX. Then first check your log on Webtag error and then look at your website or reports - wherever you use your Webtags - and check your date/time formats. Then modify where you think it is required. |
|
| |
| =Some Extra Information=
| |
|
| |
| Having covered the basics of both date and time modifiers above, it is time to talk about incorporating other information in an output modifying date/time format specification.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| Basically, we can include literal characters, and we can include HyperText Manipulation Language tags, in our specifiers.
| |
|
| |
| Finally, there will be a section on migrating from the legacy Cumulus to MX and how to modify the web tags in your templates to keep them working.
| |
|
| |
| ==Including literals in format parameters==
| |
|
| |
| [[#Use of spaces]] explained how double quotes were needed for date/time output specifiers containing spaces. It briefly talked about including literals, and we will expand on that now.
| |
|
| |
| Consequently, you cannot include double quote characters in any other position (see [[Php_webtags#Web_tag_Complications| here for work-around]]).
| |
|
| |
| You should put anything that is additional, to the defined format modifier specification below, into single quotation marks to prevent it being interpreted as a date or time format modifier. In MX, such single quotation marks should include the spaces round the additional literal text.
| |
|
| |
| #For example, the word "on" contains the character "n", which for Cumulus versions 1.9.1 to 1.9.4 will be interpreted as a time format modifier unless you put it into single quotation marks. Example of valid Cumulus 1 syntax: <#TtempH format="'at' hh: mm 'on' dd / mm / yyyy">.
| |
| #You can include HTML tags (but they cannot have any attributes because both single and double quote characters have defined meanings) and special characters as quoted text within the 'format' parameter.<br> Example of valid syntax: <#TapptempH format="'at 'h:nn' 'am/pm '<small>on' d/m/yyyy'</small>'">.
| |
| #* See next sub-section for more information on incorporating HTML if you are using MX.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| [[File:Badge vMx.png]]Note for MX - you can use single quotation marks round spaces and text (e.g. ' on '), but you can also use '\' as escape character (e.g. for 'on' use '''\o\n'''). However for '''at''' the only alternative is '''\a't'''' because the character t has another meaning and escape followed by a "t" i.e. "\t" becomes a tab!
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| {| class="wikitable" border="1"
| |
| |-
| |
| !style="width:150px" | {{Version badge 1}}Delphi Specifier for Cumulus 1.9.x
| |
| !style="width:150px" | [[File:Badge vMx.png]]Mono/.NET Specifier for Cumulus MX
| |
| !style="width:600px" | Displays
| |
| !style="width:600px" | Example
| |
| |-
| |
| |'xy'
| |
| |'xy' or ''\x\y''
| |
| |Characters enclosed in single quotation marks are displayed as such, and do not affect formatting.
| |
|
| |
| [[File:Badge vMx.png]]In MX each character to be displayed as it was typed can be prefixed by a backslash. Also remember that any spaces in a MX modifier might need to be within single quotes as space is also used to change what a modifier represents. I told you MX modifiers were more complicated!
| |
| |Hyphens are added in this PHP language example '<#LastDataReadT format=yyyy>'.'-'.'<#LastDataReadT format=MM>'.'-'.'<#LastDataReadT format="dd">'
| |
| |}
| |
|
| |
| == Using HTML tags within format parameters (available in MX only) ==
| |
|
| |
| '''Example using a class to change the look of part of the output'''
| |
|
| |
| <pre><#TapptempH format="dd' 'MMM' 'yyyy'<span class=\'xx\'> at 'HH:mm'</span>'"></pre>
| |
| the output from this will look like ''04 Dec 2018<span class='xx'> at 10:12</span>''
| |
|
| |
| '''Note where the quotes are, and where you need to use '\' escape characters'''.
| |
|
| |
| '''Example using HTML tags'''
| |
|
| |
| <pre><#RecentTS d=2 format="h:mm' 'tt'<small>on' d/M/yyyy'</small>'"></pre>
| |
| This puts the date in a smaller font than the time
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| == Migrating from legacy Cumulus 1 to MX==
| |
|
| |
| If you have created any legacy cumulus template files, then in each template, you will need to do some editing. Everywhere a web tag appears with an output modifiers that is used to specify a date and/or time format, has to be edited before that template will work for MX.
| |
|
| |
| Here are the main reasons:
| |
| * the reserved characters are different in C1 and MX (affecting use of literals like "on" and "at" that appear in many English time-stamps)
| |
| * the Delphi in legacy Cumulus is case insensitive, so for example "H" and "h" have the same meaning
| |
| * MX is case sensitive, and symbols mostly have different meanings when one symbol is used to when that symbol is used with others, so for example "H" and "h" have different meanings, and if not used with other symbols will need to be preceded with a "%" to have same meaning as they have in combination with other symbols
| |
| * In the legacy cumulus, a symbol like "d" has the same meaning for any tag
| |
| * MX is inconsistent, a symbol like "d" changes its meaning depending on the tag it is used with (e.g. the script conditional ''''<#metdateyesterday format=d>' == '<#yesterday format=d)>'''' will never be equal as the LHS returns a full date and the right hand side returns day of month only)
| |
| * the symbols used for representing such modifiers as minutes, month, am/pm, are different between C1 and MX.
| |
| * MX introduces the concept of escaping characters (a '''\''' placed before a character can be either a control sequence or an instruction to display the character)
| |
| * In the legacy Cumulus, a space is a gap between characters
| |
| * In MX, a space must be within a literal, as a space before a symbol has the same effect as "%", (it changes the interpretation of a modifier character).
| |
|
| |
| '''Confused even more now?''' I'm not surprised, but maybe some examples will help.
| |
|
| |
| === Examples ===
| |
|
| |
| *Examples related to case selection
| |
| *#[[File:badge v1.png]] In Delphi, "nn" means "minutes" for Cumulus 1, [[File:Badge vMx.png]]but "minutes" is "mm" for .NET or MONO in Cumulus MX.
| |
| *# The hour in 24-hour format with leading zero, in non case sensitive Delphi (Cumulus 1) 'HH' or 'hh' would be treated as same, but in .NET or MONO it must be "HH" (Cumulus MX).
| |
| *# The hour in 24-hour format without leading zero, in non case sensitive Delphi (Cumulus 1) 'H' or 'h' would be treated as same, but in .NET or MONO it must be "%H" (Cumulus MX).
| |
| *# For 12-hour specifiers, please see the table, as this is far more complicated.
| |
| *[[File:Badge vMx.png]]You might be put off by references within .NET and MONO (Cumulus MX) to single/standard characters and custom modifiers, the following 3 examples may add clarity:
| |
| *#For example, ''<#MonthTempHD format="d">'' is a single character format modifier, therefore the 'd' acts as a standard modifier, and causes for a date of 22 July 2014 for the highest temperature in the month to be returned in the standard short date format e.g. '22/07/2014' (exact contents for any one date vary by locale).
| |
| *#Similarly, ''<#MonthTempHD format="M">'' is a single character format modifier and therefore the 'M' acts as a standard modifier and causes the date for the highest temperature in the month to be returned in the standard day and month format e.g. '22 July' (exact contents for any one date vary by locale).
| |
| *#Whilst ''<#metdate format="d M">'' is not a single character format modifier and therefore both the 'd' and the 'M' are interpreted as custom modifiers and cause the current date to be returned as a digit(s) for the day and a digit(s) month (in a without leading zeroes format) e.g. '6 7' would be returned for 6 July.
| |
| *#Alternatively, ''<#MonthTempHD format="%d">'' is NOT a single character format modifier, therefore the 'd' acts as a custom modifier, and causes a date of 22 July 2014 for the highest temperature in the month to be returned as the day of the month only '22' in all locales.
| |
| *#Similarly, ''<#MonthTempHD format="%M">'' is NOT a single character format modifier and therefore the 'M' acts as a custom modifier and causes the same date for the highest temperature in the month to be returned as the month number '7'.
| |
|
| |
| In both Cumulus 1 and MX if you want a space character within your output, the output specifiers must be enclosed in double quotes. If that space character is next to a non modifier (e.g. around word "at") then the single quote needing to surround the at should be widened to include the spaces in MX, but Cumulus 1 does not care if single quotes excluded spaces. However, with MX, single quotes enclose multiple characters, but there is an alternative way to deal with some single verbatim characters to cover next.
| |
|
| |
| So let us compare these two alternative ways that MONO and .NET escape any characters that are not being used as format specifiers.
| |
| * In [[File:badge v1.png]]Delphi you can put the 'verbatim' characters inside single quotes (Cumulus 1); this is often used to (in English) include words like ' on ' and ' at ' in the formatted output.
| |
| *in [[File:Badge vMx.png]].NET or MONO you can still use single quotes (as mentioned above extended to include adjacent spaces),
| |
| ** but alternatively you can escape each verbatim character with a backslash as prefix (Cumulus MX).
| |
| * You may need to use both single quotes and back slashes in some format specifiers, depending whether the characters you want to include can be interpreted as control characters (yes, backslash is also used to escape control characters, so backslash will NOT work for some characters such as those in "on" and "at" [\n will produce new line not the letter n, \t will produce a tab not the letter t]), consequently for some characters you must use the literal approach to include them in your format.
| |
|
| |
| == Past history for this page==
| |
|
| |
| This page is a complete redesign of how to present information that was previously on the [[Webtags]] page, so look there for past content by selecting "history" tab.
| |
|
| |
| Trying to make the old design made for the original Cumulus software, work for MX which is now very different, made the old page unwieldy.
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| == Forum reference ==
| |
|
| |
| Steve Loft published a table showing comparison between output date modifiers for Cumulus 1 and MX at [https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=17888 Cumulus MX forum]. The table there was based on the table that appeared in this Wiki when only the original Cumulus existed, so it was designed to help people migrate to his MX beta, it was not intended as a definitive list of what modifiers were available for MX (Steve instructed people to look them up on some Microsoft sites).
| |
|
| |
| The subsequent comments in the forum suggested his layout got people confused. Most of that confusion came in two circumstances:
| |
| *When someone wanted to use one date or time modifier on its own
| |
| *When someone who had been using Cumulus 1 swapped to MX and wanted to replace a combination of output modifier characters that was not explicitly shown in his table.
| |
|
| |
| That all comes from the fact that when a MX modifier consists of a single character it can mean something different to when it appears with other characters.
| |
|
| |
| In Cumulus 1, "m" or "M" had two meanings depending whether it was combined with "H" or "h" (when it represented minutes), or on its own or with any other code (when it represented month). But for Cumulus 1, there is no other case where it matters what context a modifier is put in by the use of other modifiers, and no other modifier takes more than one meaning.
| |
|
| |
| In MX it is much more complicated, to take a few examples "D", "H", "M" represent different items on their own to what they represent when combined with other characters. That other character can be as simple as using a space or a "%" to modify the meaning of the character.
| |
|
| |
| Looking at the tables, now included above, you can see "G" is used on its own because it represents a full date-time specifier. "D" is similarly used on its own represents the long date format. If we only want the day of month number we must use "%d" to avoid the meaning of short date format that "d" on its own represents.
| |
|
| |
| If we want the typical Cumulus date-stamp of day of month number and month, then we have two choices, because both "d M" and "M" will work. This illustrates how "M" has a different meaning on its own and with another modifier.
| |
|
| |
| Hopefully, the way that information is now presented on this page makes any use of parameters for web tags much easier now.
| |
