Feature SS-2354
2 votes

Fallback text for absent extensions' regions

Created by Mike Kaganski on 5/29/2016 1:21 PM Last Updated by Mike Kaganski on 10/7/2016 1:56 AM
Logged: 0   (hrs)


Currently, if a sheet needs an extension listed in its <dependencies>, a dialog is shown that allows to install them.

But if the install is rejected, or the extension is not in the <dependencies>, or those extensions are disabled, then custom regions of absent/disabled extensions are simply absent from the sheet.

The proposal is to output rectangle with some text in place of those regions:

  • if the XML of the region contains a fallback text in a dedicated tag, then output this text;
  • otherwise, output something like "Extension "XYZ" for this region is not installed" (variant: "is disabled").

One place where an extension-defined text makes sense is in Writer extension, where it could output its unformatted version of text in case the extension is absent.

Also, it could make sense to output cached image as a fallback in case the graphic region provides it in XML.

Anyway, if a fallback is used, it is desirable that this is made apparent to user.

    Mike Kaganski (Friday, October 7, 2016 1:56 AM) #


It *is* better that nefore indeed.

But it still doesn't provide the information what is creating extension. Also, there's no fallback text.

I understand that currently the extension isn't decidable from the code. SMath just takes the XML and asks each extension if it supports "writer" region.

But if you decide not to implement the proposal to extend this, please mention this here ro the record :)

    Davide (Friday, October 7, 2016 1:43 AM) #


WriterRegion.sm -> test file

WriterRegion_disabled.sm -> file above opened after removing his plugin and then saved;

    Mike Kaganski (Friday, October 7, 2016 1:38 AM) #

Thank you Davide!

Could you please provide an example to test?

> I'd propose to close this ...


    Davide (Friday, October 7, 2016 1:29 AM) #

Available for SMath Studio 0.98.6123

Possible improvements: store original xml data to propagate it in case of further save (as well as the worksheeet's dependancy) or alternatively add an alert to show to the user that the worksheet will be saved losing the data of the missing regions; however since as it is now is better than before I'd propose to close this and in case to open the improvement as a separate issue.