# Jigsaw generic resource editors

Jigsaw uses the meta-resource description to generate automatically editors for specific resources.The generated editors actually uses HTML form, although this may change in the future. The fact that these editors are automatically generated makes them share the same user interface, which we describe in this document.

To give some insights about how the resource editors work, we will describe two representative instances of them: the FileResource editor, and the DirectoryResource editor.

## The FileResource editor

While reading this section, it might be a good idea to have another window displaying the FileResource reference documentation. You might also want to browse around its api documentation.

We will start by showing a screen dump of the file resource editor (this screen dump has been generated out of the document you get when you point your browser to `/User/Overview.html`).

If you have read the administration guide for the property editor, this may sound familiar to you. Anyway, we'll re-describe the general layout of the form here. The form is made of three distinct zones:

- The first zone (the form header), is the title section. For all editors, this section will always include at least, the name of the resource being edited (here, Overview.html), and its resource class (`w3c.jigsaw.resources.FileResource`).
- The second zone (the form card zone) contains the actual data to be edited. Here, the editor displays the resource attributes (check the FileResource reference guide)
- The last zone contains a number of links: each link points to another form card zone that will allow you to edit another set of characteristic of the resource. For an unfiltered file resource, the only other available card is the one that allows you to add a new filter.

Just being curious, you may want to follow the AddFilter link, which should popup a form similar to the one below:

The form card zone has changed, it now displays an area were you can type in the class of the filter you want to add (see the reference manual on filters for the xhaustive list of them). Note also that the last zone now displays only an Attribute link, that you may follow to go back to the previous form card. Let's continue here by adding a filter to the `/User/Overview.html` resource. We'll just add a CounterFilter (a filter that counts the number of hits to some resource). We tyoe in the filter's class name `w3c.jigsaw.filters.CounterFilter`, and press the OK button. Here is the new form that you get back:

Notice the two new links at the bottom of the form: they allow you to respectively edit the filter attributes, and the attribute values the filter shadows for its target (see the Jigsaw architectural overview for more informations on shadowed attribute values).

By now, you should know enough to use the generic editor. You may want to remove the CounterFilter filter from the `/User/Overview.html` resource, by following the w3c.jigsaw.filters.CounterFilter link, and pressing the Remove button that will appear here.

## The DirectoryResource editor

You may now want to have two additional windows, one displaying the DirectoryResource reference guide, and the other displaying the DirectoryResource api documentation.

The directory resource editor is very similar to the file resource editor, however, it provides two additional form cards to display (and modify) its existing children resources, and to add new children resources. To get acquainted with these two new kind of forms, we will pop up the directory resource editor on the `/User` resource (which is a DirectoryResource instance). By pointing your browser to `/Admin/Editor/User`, and following the ExistingResources link you should get the following (and now familiar) form:

We still have our three zones, the title zone indicates that we are editing a DirectoryResource whose name is `User`. The bottom zone shows the usual navigation links. The form card zone, however, now displays the list of children resources of the directory resource. You can follow any of the links to edit the corresponding resource. There is also a new Command field, to indicate what operations you want to perform on the marked children resources. To mark a resource, click on the checkbox at the right of its name. You can then execute one of the selected command by pressing the OK button. The update command will update any attribute that depends on the wrapped file content, the remove command will delete the resource (but not the underlying file), and the reindex command will re-run the resource factory to make it create a new resource for the wrapped file (this is usefull if you have changed your resource factory configuration).

By following the AddingResource link, you will get the following form:

This form prompts you for a resource name, and a resource class (consult the reference manual for the list of available resources). Fill both of them to create a new resource, and press the OK button: the new resource is created, and you will be relocated to a suitable editor of it.

Jigsaw Team
$Id: resedit.html,v 1.8 1997/07/31 08:20:15 ylafon Exp $