Why are existing so many different file views?

Plone Support Add-on Development
1

I play a little bit with the Views for Filetype. In a plain Plone i find some views for a file:

  • /@@display-file --> Download the File
  • /@@download --> Download the File
  • /@@file_view --> View with a Template from plone.app.contenttypes
  • /view --> View with a Template from plone.app.contenttypes
  • /@@view --> a View or is this an Alias for what? looks like generic dexterity view?

What i need: one view for Download and one View for Display (include download Button/Link via Widget) like in the 'file_view'. How can i unregister or override or redirect '/@@view' to '/view' (no, not via frontend webserver :wink: ) ?

I thought so far that definitions are the same?

<browser:page
  name="@@view"
  for="plone.app.contenttypes.interfaces.IFile"
  layer="my.addon.interfaces.IMyLayer"
  class=".views.FileView"
  permission="zope2.View" />

<browser:page
  name="view"
  for="plone.app.contenttypes.interfaces.IFile"
  layer="my.addon.interfaces.IMyLayer"
  class=".views.FileView"
  permission="zope2.View" />

As example:
https://demo-latest-plone6.plone.org/de/demo/a-file.pdf/view
https://demo-latest-plone6.plone.org/de/demo/a-file.pdf/@@view

I'm a little bit confused, but hey, that is Plone :wink:

2

As I understand it, @@ explicitly tells Plone that you mean the browser view, otherwise Plone tries to guess what you mean

I learned a lot going through the Mastering Plone training class. Have you looked there for an explanation?

3

As Kim already explained, @@ (like ++) is a traversal directive: you never use it as part of a name.

You do not need an unregister or override for view/@@view. Overriding usually is based on your own (presentation) "layer" -- a standard "theme" component. A layer has a name and an associated interface. It is defined in a browserlayer.xml and registered via GenericSetup. After the registration, you can use the layer attribute of the ZCML browser directives to "bind" the registration to your layer; usually, it is more specific than the default registration and thus overrides.

If you really need to unregister something, you can use z3c.unconfigure. To use it, you must have located the original registration: usually, an unregistration looks like the registration (in the correct context and inside an unconfigure).

1 Like
4
  • @@file_view is the default view-view for the content type
  • view is the alias for the selected layout; if no layout is selected, the default view (@@file_view) is used.
  • @@view is a generic dexterity view, showing the display form for a dexterity content object

Usually the default view is used when you omit a specific view (so /my-page would be the same as /my-page/view), so the default view is the default view-view. But for files the default view is @@display-file, so you get a download instead.

This is the method alias chart from demo.plone.org:

Screenshot 2021-05-20 at 07.27.27
Screenshot 2021-05-20 at 07.27.271824×1276 302 KB

I don’t know why there are two download views.

Sometimes I see folks registering the default view for a custom content type in ZCML as name=view. This will result in a customization/override of the generic dexterity @@view, and then view, @@view and no provided view name are the same. I don’t recommend that. Better is something like file_view, document_view etc.; EasyForm does that for example.

1 Like
5

Also, I would recommend to get rid of the dexterity @@view registration (using the before mentioned z3c.unconfigure), as it can confuse people and exposes internal content data which might not be desired, e.g. https://demo-latest-plone6.plone.org/de/demo/a-page/@@view also shows the blocks and blocks layout config. Some content types might have more sensible data.

1 Like
6

One thing I didn't read yet in the comments. There is/was a distinction in the download view vs display view in the mime/type and/or extra header information that is sent back to the browser: this to either force inline display with for example a PDF or Word/Excel inline viewing. or to always show a download popup to save the file on disk. The original file name can also be passed in this header. So the content item in Plone has id presentation-2021, but the file in the file field has id "Presentation_final_2021.pdf" and will be saved as such locally.

But in some browsers (IE, cough cough) if you once said "show inline" or 'save to disk" this would/could become the default and also sometimes silently happen on subsequent clicks. "My PDF is broken". No, IE silently stored it in your downloads folder......

7

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