Coolmaps Components Club : Components : PopRocket

PopRocket 5.0

-- t h e P o p R o c k e t S t o r y --

It all started with an icon.

Pete, the icon-master, found a cool image of a rocket that he wanted to use for a toolbar icon. He asked Peter, the name-master, to come up with a component to suit. The members were asking for a pop-up window component. Pop-up Windows, Rocket icons ... the rest is history.

-- t i p s / t r i c k s --

Same Window / Different Windows / Focus

The PopRocket will open a new file in a Window with the name you give it. Names are set on the window that is activated by double-clicking on the "Click Me" setting. If you pop up a page in a window that is not all ready active, a new window will be created. If you try to pop-up a window that all ready exists, then the page will load into the existing window. Unfortunately, if the existing window happens to be minimized, the user will not know that the anything has happened.

One solution to this problem is to make sure that all your windows have different names. The trouble with this approach is that after a while, your user ends up with too many open windows.

Another solution is to place a bit of javascript in the top of each page that you plan to open. On each pop-up page place this in the <BODY> tag:

ONLOAD="focus()"

To add javascript to the Body Tag:

1) click on the layout region
2) click the HTML button on the Layout Properties Palette
3) click the Inside The Body tab
4) type in the javacript: ONLOAD="focus"
5) click OK

PopRocket to External Files

Using NOF's link selector, you can select any type of file to link to. If you are selecting a link for PopRocket, then you can use the file selector to pick a graphic file, a text file, or anything else that catches your fancy.

Graphics work really well. Just size the pop-up to be the same size as the graphic itself. One trouble with selecting a file, though, is that you cannot use the onFocus trick described above. The file being put into the pop-up window is just a graphic and nothing more. There is no way to add javascript or any HTML to it.

-- c o m m o n q u e s t i o n s --

How do I set the size of the pop-up window?
The size and other "window" attributes are set by double clicking on the "Click Me" property in the palette. By double clicking there, a new window will appear (after a couple of seconds of waiting). In that window, you can set size, handles, etc.

Sometimes I can't view the pop up window from my broswer. What's happening?
Most likely the pop-up window that you are linking to is minimized on the page. See the tip above.

-- c o m m o n m i s t a k e s --

Doesn't work in Preview.

Doesn't work in partial site publish.

Doesn't work when you publish by CSS/Layers. Workaround is to put component into a layout region and specify the layout region to be published by nested tables.

--o t h e r c o m p o n e n t s p o t l i g h t s --