Could someone shed some light on the subject of blocks? I'm coding a module, and I want to code some blocks for it. Unfortunately, I can't find the necessary docs in Wiki, and the search hasn't brought up anything useful. Is there some secret documentation somewhere?

I have the block info defined in the xoops_version.php file. I have the block template set up. I even have a function defined within the blocks directory. But at that point, I'm lost. The block (whcih is really just a template file at this point) isn't showing at all...and I have permission to view it, and it is set to visible.

And now I'm just frustrated.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One undocumented fact is that the show-function, which sets up the template variables for the block's template, must return a non-empty array.

For example:



If you don't do that, the function that calls the show-function simply exits with no error indication. (It took me a few hours of debugging to figure that out. )

I'm also in the process of writing a block for my module. If I come across any other peculiarities, I'll post back here (if I remember).

I know exactly how you feel. I had the same experience when starting to write for xoops.

I don't know if it's worth much, but I wrote up an article on debugging xoops, and posted it on my site.

http://www.worldware.com/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=2

I don't know if it will help. Most of it is obvious. Right after someone tells you

Comments are welcome.

Tom

Hi -

One of the things I did when I was getting annoyed writing blocks, was write a debug block. It's just about the simplest block you can do, so there's very little to go wrong. I can start by installing it, then I can make sure I have everything right for the simple case. Then I can add code from my real block, until I can see what causes a problem.

Note that while I was just off cleaning this up, it was not showing up for me, even after repeated reloads of the module. I uninstalled the module, and re-installed it, and there it was. So try that, too.


Here are the parts of my block:

from xoops_version.php:


Start your block indexes at 1, not zero.!

And this forum keeps changing the code I'm posting below for debugblock.php. It keeps turning my urls in debugblock.php into a hyperlink.

So when copying and pasting the section below, make sure you paste the code below as text, not HTML. the values in the array should just be
h t t p : // http://www.worldware.com, and not
a href h t t p: // http://www.worldware.com

Note to XOOPS team: things within code blocks should not be altered. That's a bug!

blocks\debugblock.php:


function b_bookstore_debug()

{
$sites = array
(
"xoops.org" => "https://xoops.org",
"worldware.com" => "http://www.worldware.com"
);
$block = array();
$link = array();
foreach ($sites as $site => $url)
{
$link['site'] = $site;
$link['url'] = $url;
$block['links'][] = $link;
}
return $block;
}
?>


templates\blocks\bookstore_debug.html:

It's sort of a feature. If your database query returns 0 rows, then the block doesn't show.

It's usually what you want.

Except maybe when debugging.

Tom

I guess that makes sense. But most of my time is spent debugging, so ...

If your block relies on database queries, the queries will still show up in MySQL debug if enabled.

Okay...the module seems to be working pretty well now. The whole $block thing was throwing me for a loop, as it isn't typical of the smarty stuff I've been using for the rest of the module.

I have one more related question though:

My module is set up so that there's a common php script that gets included into each script. This file is called functions.php. In the blocks routines, however, I am not able to include this file.

The blocks file is in "tunetracker/blocks/tt_blocks.php"
The functions script is in "tunetracker/functions.php"

I was using the command "include('../functions.php'), but alas, it doesn't seem to be loading.

What should I do here to be able to include that file?

Thanks for the help.

try with
include_once (XOOPS_ROOT_PATH.'/modules/tunetracker/functions.php');

and also use include_once in your module pages or you will get a fatal error due to the same function being defined twice.

I tried that...and all I get is a blank screen (no errors, nothing). I'll continue to trouble-shoot...but I have no idea why that one line could cause the problem.