Widget code works on one NodeBB instance but not another

phenomlab

My further testing shows that the other site I have is also affected by the same issue. As soon as you move the widget code out of any custom page widget and into the stock templates such as recent, unread, popular, etc, it does not work.

phenomlab

Anyone have any thoughts on this please ?

Thanks

<baris>

You should post what changes you are making to the core templates. I tested the widget code and it works fine with a default persona and core. Except the {user.username} part doesn't work because the user object isn't passed to the widgets.

I put

<div id="welcome">
<div class="welcome">
<!-- IF !loggedIn -->
Hello, guest. New here ? Read <a href="https://sudonix.com/welcome">this</a> to learn how this platform can help you
<!-- ELSE -->
<div class="hello">Welcome back, <a href="/me"><span class="username">{user.username}</span></a></div>
<!-- ENDIF !loggedIn -->
</div>
</div>

In a html widget and placed it in the global header.

If it's not working it's likely because of some modification you make to the templates because the widget wasn't in the correct place in your html.

phenomlab

@baris Thanks - sorry - I should clarify here.

The code does work and the widget appears exactly where I expect in all cases, so the template modifications are not the issue here What IS the issue is that {user.username} returns a blank value in all stock templates from core, but works in any custom template I create.

Disabling the Customizer plugin means all templates return to their defaults, but {user.username} is affected by the same issue.

<baris>

Yeah {user.username} is blank because it is not being provided by the backend. If you want to be able to use it on any template you need to make it available with the hook 'filter:middleware.render' like this.

myPlugin.filterMiddlewarRender = async (hookData) => {
    hookData.templateData.user = await user.getUserData(hookData.req.uid);
    return hookData;
};

This would add user property to all pages.

phenomlab

@baris Thanks. Can I execute this using Custom JS ?

Tried it, and got

<baris>

No this needs to go in a plugin for the server side. The JS tab in the ACP is for client side scripts.

phenomlab

@baris So I'd need to create a plugin I guess ?

<baris>

If you don't have a custom plugin already then yes you need to create one. You can test it out by adding it to persona's library.js and plugin.json.

phenomlab

@baris Great. Thanks. Is there any possibility this could be added to persona at all ?

<baris>

No plans to add it to persona.

phenomlab

@baris I'm looking to implement a plugin to do this, but ideally am looking for some sort of reference guide or skeleton plugin to use - any advice ?

EDIT - found https://docs.nodebb.org/development/plugins/ so reading this first

Thanks

<baris>

https://github.com/NodeBB/nodebb-plugin-quickstart

phenomlab

@baris Potentially dumb question, but how do you use this plugin ? There doesn't seem to be any instructions at all??

Also, there's an error in the console when attempting to use

Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: n.ColorPicker is not a function
    at HTMLInputElement.<anonymous> (colorpicker.js:11)
    at Function.each (jquery.js:385)
    at C.fn.init.each (jquery.js:207)
    at Object.n.enable (colorpicker.js:8)
    at o (admin.js:31)
    at Object.i.init (admin.js:9)
    at ajaxify.js:357

<baris>

You fork it and make your modifications and publish to npm with a different name like nodebb-plugin-<your-plugin>

Make sure to rebuild&restart after you install and active.

<baris>

The colorpicker seems to be an issue with a missing dependency, you can remove that when you fork the plugin.

phenomlab

@baris Thanks. Forked, and now ready to insert this

myPlugin.filterMiddlewarRender = async (hookData) => {
    hookData.templateData.user = await user.getUserData(hookData.req.uid);
    return hookData;
};

Does this simply get placed in main.js ?

If I do this, I get

main.js:19 Uncaught ReferenceError: myPlugin is not defined
    at HTMLDocument.<anonymous> (main.js:19)
    at l (jquery.js:3766)
    at u (jquery.js:3834)

<baris>

No it goes in library.js since it's a server side hook. And you need to add the corresponding entry in plugin.json.

// library.js
myPlugin.filterMiddlewareRender = async (hookData) => {
    hookData.templateData.user = await user.getUserData(hookData.req.uid);
    return hookData;
};

//plugin.json
"hooks": {
   "filter:middleware.render": "filterMiddlewareRender"
   ...
}