Questions & Answers

[ldriver]

I have an executable working to open an external image gallery via iFrame (custom DAM, Flickr, etc).  How can I select an image from the external gallery into an FS_REFERENCE?  I don't have any cross-domain issues since my custom iFrame is hosted on the First Spirit server.  I want to select the image and have a custom button to "import into CMS" or something similar where the image can be used in something like FS_REFERENCE.  If FS_REFERENCE is not appropriate how can I get the image into the cms.  Basically I want to mimic an image gallery which lets you pull images from an external source, so after selecting the image I can do something like this:

[bIT_sosswald]

Hi Leland,

I think this could be done by an AppCenter Integration. (http://www.e-spirit.com/en/product/working-with-firstspirit/appcenter-using-web-applications/)

Broadly speaking you can display your external DAM, Filckr, etc. inside FirstSpirit, inject some code into the Page which then could be used to get the URL of the image which sould be embedded into your Website. So it is possible to use Images from an external DAM, Filckr, etc. without importing them into FirstSpirit.

Another way could be a DataAccess Plugin which can access e.g. external WebServices. So if your DAM offers an API this would be a possibility. (http://www.e-spirit.com/odfs52/plug-developmen/universal-exten/data-access/)

Greetings

Sandro

[ldriver]

Is AppCenter specific to Site Architect?  This solution needs to work in Content Creator moreso than Site Architect.  Is AppCenter available for CC (WebEdit)?

[pavone]

Hello Leland,

AppCenter is not available in the CC, but DataAccessPlugins.

Best regards

Tim

[ldriver]

Is there any way to create an FS_REFERENCE with the URL of the image?  Or does anyone have another suggestion?

What will happen is the user will select the external image and click a select button which will close the dialog and return control to the section template, I want the selected image in some kind of an FS_REFERENCE after the select.

This question is really centered around FS_REFERENCE, not AppCenter.  Basically is there a way to "shoehorn" an external image into FS_REFERENCE, or if not does anyone have any other suggestions.  I want to avoid a custom gadget if possible.

[pavone · Accepted solution]

Hi Leland,

FS_REFERENCE can not be used to reference external objects. There are different things you could do:

1. The easiest option would be to store the url in a textfield. But that's probably not very satisfactory and not what you and the editors want

2. Create a "placeholder" object in the media store for each image and store the url in the meta data of that object. Then you can reference the placeholder object using FS_REFERENCE.

3. The recommended way of referencing external resources is to use FS_INDEX and implement a DataAccessPlugin.

Best regards

Tim

[thmarx]

Hello Leland,   

do you need further help or did Tim's reply already help you? If so, it would be great if you marked

his reply as "correct answer" so that other community users find the solution easily. If you have

already found a solution by yourself, it would be very kind of you, if you posted it here.   

Best regards 

Thorsten