Add HTML tags around SmartGWT widgets

[Amphro]

Hello,

I'm creating an application that parses XML. After parsing, the corresponding widgets gets created and added to the page. To provide more customization, a user can include XHTML tags for formatting. These tags should go directly to the page in the spot they were specified. For example, lets say I have a "button" tag and the user writes:

<b> <lab:button name="Run Me" evaluate="MyEvaluator"> </b>

the HTML should look something like

<b> <SmartGWT button widget code> </b>

My first attempt was to do the following.

window.addMember(new HTMLFlow("<"+tagName+">"));
window.addMember(button);
window.addMember(new HTMLFlow("</"+tagName+">"));

SmartGWT, in the case where the tagName is "b", produces

<Some sort of div> <b></b> <div>
<SmartGWT button widget code>

Since then, I also tried overwriting methods and classes, turning everything into HTML then adding one HTMLFlow widget, and some other unsuccessful approaches. I don't want to write the widget code by hand, because that defeats the purpose of using SmartGWT, or GWT for that matter. Plus I am using a lot more widgets then just buttons.

Does anyone know a solution to this problem or can get me pointed in the right direction. It seems the simplest solution is to just directly write "<b>" before and "</b>" after the widget, although I'm not sure if that can be done. Anything ideas?

Thanks!

Tom

[svjard]

The DOM is considered internal to the API and not to be changed for good reason. Though still possible in JSNI if you have a solid understanding of what your doing and code. But I don't quite understand your use case really, like why would you wrap <b> tags around a button? Are you trying to let the user customize the contents of the button?

[Amphro]

Yea, bad example. The idea is for a user to put tags where they want to, without me having to know (since I just put the tag directly where they placed it). A better example would be a table. In this case, the user could layout the internal part of the lab. They could put a Button, Textbox, or some more complicated custom widgets within <table><tr><td> tags.

Someone suggested a UIBinder, which wont work. I have to validate and process the xml myself. Also, a good portion of xml tags do something in the background and don't even show on the page.

I could create my own <table> and <b> tags (for example) and translate them to a GWT widget, but again, the idea was a user could have full flexibility and customization . If we did it that way, we would have to add tags every time we wanted some new UI functionality. If we supported the use of xhtml, we wouldn't need to.

[svjard]

This still goes back to the thing that the DOM is internal. So it is one thing to customize content of a widget, but a whole other to customize the DOM of widgets which really isn't supported.

[Amphro]

The more I explore different options, the more I realize it's a bad idea. It was worth a shot.

Thanks for the reply and information!

Tom