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Javascript News Ticker Using Xml Data


kwilliams

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I found an online tutorial on using JavaScript to load a news ticker from XML data. I now want to filter those results by displaying only "message" nodes that contain an "@status" attribute value of "active". I've made a few attempts at it without success. Below is the code that I have, including the solution I tried without success under "filter attempt". If anyone could help me to solve this issue, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.xmlticker.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?><xmlticker>	<pause>1000</pause>	<message url="url1.html" status="active" description="Description #1">Message #1</message>	<message url="url2.html" status="inactive" description="Description #2">Message #2</message>	<message url="url3.html" status="active" description="Description #3">Message #3</message>	<message url="url4.html" status="active" description="Description #4">Message #4</message></xmlticker>

ticker.html:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"><html><head><script language="javascript">/*DOM XML ticker- © Dynamic Drive (www.dynamicdrive.com)For full source code, 100's more DHTML scripts, and Terms Of Use, visit http://www.dynamicdrive.comCredit MUST stay intact*///Declare variablesvar tickercontainer = '<div id="container" style="background-color:#FFFFE1;width:150px;height:120px;font:normal 13px Verdana;"></div>';//container for ticker. Modify its STYLE attribute to customize style.var xmlsource = "xmlticker.xml";//specifies path to xml filevar notWhitespace = /\S/; //regular expression used to match any non-whitespace charactervar msglength = "";var currentmsg = 1;var themessage = "";//load xml fileif (window.ActiveXObject) {//then	var xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");}else if (document.implementation && document.implementation.createDocument) {//then	var xmlDoc= document.implementation.createDocument("","doc",null);}//end if	if (typeof xmlDoc != "undefined") {//then	//var nodelist As XmlNodeList;	document.write(tickercontainer);	xmlDoc.load(xmlsource);}//end iffunction init_ticker() {//begin function	//Cache "messages" element of xml file	tickerobj = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("xmlticker")[0];//ORIGINAL - WORKING		//REMOVE white spaces in XML file. Intended mainly for NS6/Mozilla	for (i=0;i<tickerobj.childNodes.length;i++) {//begin loop		if ((tickerobj.childNodes[i].nodeType == 3) && (!notWhitespace.test(tickerobj.childNodes[i].nodeValue))) {//then			tickerobj.removeChild(tickerobj.childNodes[i]);			i--;		}//end if	}//end loop		document.getElementById("container").innerHTML = "Information follows...";//tickerobj.childNodes[1].firstChild.nodeValue;//this is the container's first value	msglength = tickerobj.childNodes.length;//amount of message nodes	setInterval("rotatemsg()",tickerobj.childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue);//set ticker to "pause" node value}//end functionfunction rotatemsg() {//begin function	var msgsobj = tickerobj.childNodes[currentmsg];//starting with message 1 (tickerobj.childNodes[1])	if (msgsobj.getAttribute("url") != null) {//then		themessage = '<strong><a href="' + msgsobj.getAttribute("url") + '"';		//Set target		if (msgsobj.getAttribute("target") != null); {//then			themessage += ' target="' + msgsobj.getAttribute("target") + '"';			themessage += '>';		}//end if				themessage += msgsobj.firstChild.nodeValue;//sets title		themessage += '</a>: </strong>';		themessage += msgsobj.getAttribute("description");		themessage += ' <a href="' + msgsobj.getAttribute("url") + '">Learn more >></a>';		//Rotate msg and display it in DIV:		document.getElementById("container").innerHTML = themessage;//applies entire message to div "container"		currentmsg = (currentmsg < msglength - 1)? currentmsg + 1 : 1; //(1 < 4 - 1)? 1 + 1 : 1		themessage = '';	}//end if}//end functionfunction fetchxml() {//begin function	if (xmlDoc.readyState == 4) {//then		init_ticker();	}	else {		setTimeout("fetchxml()",10);	}//end if}//end function</script><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><title>Test File</title></head><body><script language="javascript">if (window.ActiveXObject) {//then	fetchxml();}else if (typeof xmlDoc != "undefined") {//then	xmlDoc.onload = init_ticker;}//end if</script></body></html>

filter attempt:

function rotatemsg() {//begin function	var msgsobj = tickerobj.childNodes[currentmsg];//starting with message 1 (tickerobj.childNodes[1])	if (msgsobj.getAttribute("url") != null && msgsobj.getAttribute("status") != "inactive") {//then <<<<<------*****THIS IS WHAT I TRIED*****		themessage = '<strong><a href="' + msgsobj.getAttribute("url") + '"';		//Set target		if (msgsobj.getAttribute("target") != null); {//then			themessage += ' target="' + msgsobj.getAttribute("target") + '"';			themessage += '>';		}//end if				themessage += msgsobj.firstChild.nodeValue;//sets title		themessage += '</a>: </strong>';		themessage += msgsobj.getAttribute("description");		themessage += ' <a href="' + msgsobj.getAttribute("url") + '">Learn more >></a>';		//Rotate msg and display it in DIV:		document.getElementById("container").innerHTML = themessage;//applies entire message to div "container"		currentmsg = (currentmsg < msglength - 1)? currentmsg + 1 : 1; //(1 < 4 - 1)? 1 + 1 : 1		themessage = '';	}//end if}//end function

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Ok, here's an update:I received a suggestion of moving the following line out of the "if" statement,

//Rotate msg and display it in DIV:		document.getElementById("container").innerHTML = themessage;//applies entire message to div "container"		themessage = '';	}//end if	currentmsg = (currentmsg < msglength - 1)? currentmsg + 1 : 1; //(1 < 4 - 1)? 1 + 1 : 1;

and it works! Yeah.But now I have another issue on this line:

setInterval("rotatemsg()",tickerobj.childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue);//set ticker to "pause" node value

...within the init_ticker() function. Now the pause still happens for the nodes not displayed. So although it does display only the nodes that have a status="active" value, the "1000" pause value still happens for those blank nodes. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can tweak my code to fix that as well, that would be great. Thanks.

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You probably need to keep incrementing the currentmsg counter until you get to a message with the right status. You're incrementing the counter but not checking if the next message is going to be shown.

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You probably need to keep incrementing the currentmsg counter until you get to a message with the right status. You're incrementing the counter but not checking if the next message is going to be shown.
Could you let me know how I can correct that? I moved the currentmsg variable just above the "setInterval", but that made no difference. Thanks for any help.
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You need to test the node to make sure it's going to be shown. You can use a while loop for that. e.g.:

currentmsg = (currentmsg < msglength - 1)? currentmsg + 1 : 1;msgsobj = tickerobj.childNodes[currentmsg];while (msgsobj.getAttribute("url") == null || msgsobj.getAttribute("status") == "inactive"){  currentmsg = (currentmsg < msglength - 1)? currentmsg + 1 : 1;  msgsobj = tickerobj.childNodes[currentmsg];}

That loop will end when currentmsg points to a node that is actually going to be shown.

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