Hello,
I have a little question about action list.
Is there a kind of template that you can do with action list to reuse them in other project without recreating it?
Tell me if my question is unclear
thank you
Hi Alexis,
In FinalBuilder 5 you can use the “Include Project” action to call an Action List in another FinalBuilder project, so you could put your “common” action lists into a “common” project and then call out to them with “Include Project”. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?
Regards,
- Angus
Hi,
This is a good work around for what i’m asking.
It should be very good if it was possible to export an action list in an action template, and after reuse them in other project… without having a “common” project.
Should i post this in Final Builder Wish List?
Thank you for the rapid feed back
Alexis
Hi Alexis,
Sounds like a good wish list. The problem with that kind of approach is how to make changes which affect all of the already-created action lists.
- Angus
Alexis,
I was having a similiar delima when I first started using Final Builder. I wanted the process for building a component to be similiar for all the components I build, and I wanted a change to the build process to affect all the components without having to manually modify all those scripts.
What I eventually did was create a model for building a component, and instead of hard-coding the component into that structure, I made the build strucutre look at variables to know which componenet to build. Then it was just a matter of wrapping that building structure inside an iterator that would re-populate the variables each pass.
Originally I fed the iterator through an INI file, but as it grew it because un-weildly, so now I am working to feed the iterator through an database query.
Maybe it would be adventageous for you to implement a similiar technique.
Angus, maybe i don’t understand the problem you see. I think that an option that could export an action to maybe an xml file… or anything else. Should not do a problem, i don’t know how these actions or action list are stored but for sure they are stored. If it is possible to use an action list from another project, i don’t understand why it is not possible to have action list outside of a project and use them… maybe there is a reason that i can’t see. But your workaround with a common project is great too but not the best.
Yes it is a good idea i’ll think about it thank you mike.
Alexis
Alexis,
You asked about how the Action lists are stored. When you save a project into FBPx format, it is an xml format, easily viewable/editable in any XML or even plain-text application. When you save a project in FBZx format, it is simply the same FBPx file encoded in a PKZIP style compression. Rename any FBZx file to ZIP and open it in your favorite ZIP viewer and see this for yourself.
Anyway, the point is that obviously you can edit those XML files to do things that are more difficult to do through the GUI. The only issue is that each action has a GUID type of property on it. What I do when I copy or generate action lists is to remove or omit these settings, and then when you open the project file in the GUI and then save it, the GUI will generate fresh ones. I don’t know what would happen if you have multiple actions with the same code, but I figure better safe than sorry.
And if you’re looking for a good command-line scriptable XML utility, there is a freeware one out there called XMLStarlet that I use all the time and it’s very powerful and you can beat it for free!
Anyway, Hope that helps you out.