Migrate custom admin pages with dialogs from 4.5.12 to 5.3.4

Question

Migrate custom admin pages with dialogs from 4.5.12 to 5.3.4

267 Views Asked by user3393967 At 04 April 2025 at 16:47

We have code to open dialogs for links on admin pages by calling the javascript function mgnlOpenDialog(), like this,

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
[#assign cms=JspTaglibs["cms-taglib"]]
<html>
<head>
<title>UCP Books</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<link href="${this.request.contextPath}/.resources/admin-css/admin-all.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="${this.request.contextPath}/.magnolia/pages/javascript.js"><!-- --></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
function displayDialog()
{
if ( ! window.focus ) return true;

var path = "${this.path}";
var nodeCollection = null;
var node = "${this.nodeName}";
var paragraph = null;
var repository = "${this.repository}";
var dialogPage = ".magnolia/dialogs/author.html";
mgnlOpenDialog( path, nodeCollection, node, paragraph, repository, dialogPage );
return false;
}
</script>
</head>
<body id="mgnl" class="mgnlBgLight mgnlImportExport">
<h2>
${this.messages.get("module.books.pages.AuthorDetailPage.header")}
<span class="mgnlControlButton" onclick="displayDialog();">
${this.messages.get("module.books.pages.edit")}
</span>
</h2>

<div class="pageFrame">${this.content}</div>
</body>
</html>

Now we are migrating our site from 4.5.12 to 5.3.4, and I noticed that the dialog definitions got updated. Now when I click on the link, there is still the dialog popup, but the popup is blank with the old style "Save" and "Cancel" buttons displaying at the bottom. It seems we need to convert our admin pages to content apps. But to do it that way will require a lot of changes in our code. So I'd like to know if there is an alternative way to replace mgnlOpenDialog() function to invoke the dialogs when I click on the links on the admin pages.

Thanks very much!

Aiping

Original Q&A

There are 3 best solutions below

**user3393967** · Answer 1

Thanks Jan!

This seems a right direction to go by calling the url,

http://<your host>:<your port>/<contextPath>/.magnolia/admincentral#app:<yourAppName>:detail;/path/to/edited/content:edit.

I've configured the detail subapp and added this line to my code,

<a href="#" onclick="top.window.location.href='/magnoliaAuthor/.magnolia/admincentral#app:cmosPolls:detail;/faq/polls/2014/po2014110413}:editor';">title</a>

and it works. I'll post more in details later.

Thanks, Aiping

**Jan** · Answer 2

Yeah this doesn't work any longer. Assuming you needed to open the dialogs explicitly because you had content you were editing in other workspaces then website. Correct?

When migrating custom data to M5, if you had that content in data workspace, you can use migration task to move it from the shared workspace into separate workspace and to also migrate your dialog. Not sure at the moment if it generates also app for you, but if not you can use this script to create one.

Once you have dialog migrated (or created from scratch) and your app created (either via script above or manually) you can just simply open any content in that app for editing and copy url from there. That would be the url you need to call to open dialog for editing from anywhere. It will be something like http://<your host>:<your port>/<contextPath>/.magnolia/admincentral#app:<yourAppName>:detail;/path/to/edited/content:edit of course, assuming your subapp is called "detail" and your edit action "edit" as suggested in the tutorial or generated by the script.

Good luck,

Jan

**user3393967** · Answer 3

Jan, I tried your solution as I commented here and it works well, except for one issue. Here I'm pointing to several screenshots to better explain it.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103180294078685589341/albums/6081701864232931905

On the app_faqSearch_1.png, there is a search form only.

The app_faqSearch_2.png is the page with the search results.

When I click on the "faq0004" link on app_faqSearch_2.png, the app_faqSearch_3.png appears. The code behind the scenes is,

<a href="#" onclick="top.window.location.href='/magnoliaAuthor/.magnolia/admincentral#app:faqSearch:detail;/faq/topics/commas/faq0004:edit';">faq0004</a>

The problem is when I close the dialog tab "/FAQ/TOPICS/COMMAS/...", on the app_faqSearch_4.png, the search results are not there anymore since the view got reloaded.

Is there a way to configure to prevent the view from being reloaded if it's already opened, like for this URL in my case, /magnoliaAuthor/.magnolia/admincentral#app:faqSearch:main;

Or is there a way to explicitly open a dialog, instead of an editor, by passing the node path and workspace when click on the link like "faq0004"? Similar way to open the "editMessage" dialog in "contacts" app.

Thanks very much,

Aiping

Migrate custom admin pages with dialogs from 4.5.12 to 5.3.4

There are 3 best solutions below

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