When using dynamic data sources, you often won't have control over all of the fields which are passed.    Or, only some of the fields you want to use will be available.    In these cases, you will need to use the built-in XML transformation capabilities to convert the XML into the format you need.

The transformation capabilities in this section show how you can pass a description in the as well as other image parameters, such as a video file or image tooltip.    These techniques apply also to RSS feeds, where you can specify both a title and description but no other image property fields.

Passing a Description in the Title

This technique is used with external data sources where you are only able to pass a single parameter -- the title.    You can embed a description in the title by using the following format:

The Image Title{desc}The image description is here.

Wherever {desc} is placed in the title, the string will be split, with the first half used as the title and the latter half used as the description/caption.

Note: {capt} has the same effect as {desc}, but {desc} is the preferred value.

The custom-parameter technique shown below (for passing special parameters in the description) can be used in conjunction with this method, allowing for the title, description, and other parameters to all be passed in the title.

Passing Custom Parameters in the Description / Caption

In instances where you only can pass image title and description information (such as RSS feeds or Flickr API data), you may still want to pass XFS-specific image parameters, such as a video file or tooltip.    This can be done by including special values of the following format within the description/caption value:

{setAtt:attName=attValue}

Replace attName with the name of the attribute you want to set, and attValue with the new value of the attribute.    For example, if you wanted to set the image's tooltip (via the toolTip attribute) to be 'A cool tooltip!', you would use the following value within the description in the dynamic data source:

{setAtt:toolTip=A cool tooltip!}

This can be used with any attribute.    Even though it's not recommended, you could even modify the thumbnail or src attributes (which specify the image URL's) if you don't like the default values which are coming through.  Here's an example of the above text as part of an actual description:

This image has a very unique description.  This is the unique description.{setAtt:toolTip=A cool tooltip!}

Tip: To learn about all of the supported XML attribute names, browse a generated XML configuration file or see the Developer Reference section of the manual.