Message

The Message is a container to show a message to the user; you create a Message by instantiating a Message<TModel> within a using block. The start and end of the using block will output the start and end HTML for the Message and the inside of the using block will contain the Message content.

The Message<TModel> class looks like this and is in the ChameleonForms.Component namespace:

    /// <summary>
    /// Wraps the output of a message to display to a user.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="TModel">The view model type for the current view</typeparam>
    public class Message<TModel> : FormComponent<TModel>
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a message.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="form">The form the message is being created in</param>
        /// <param name="messageType">The type of message to display</param>
        /// <param name="heading">The heading for the message</param>
        public Message(IForm<TModel> form, MessageType messageType, IHtmlString heading) : base(form, false) {...}

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates the HTML for a paragraph in the message.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="paragraph">The paragraph to output</param>
        /// <returns>The HTML for the paragraph</returns>
        public virtual IHtmlString Paragraph(string paragraph) {...}

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates the HTML for a paragraph in the message.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="paragraph">The paragraph to output</param>
        /// <returns>The HTML for the paragraph</returns>
        public virtual IHtmlString Paragraph(IHtmlString paragraph) {...}
    }

The start and end HTML of the Message are generated via the BeginMessage and EndMessage methods in the template and the paragraph is generated via the MessageParagraph method in the template.

Default usage

In order to get an instance of a Message<TModel> you can use the BeginMessage extension method on the Form, e.g.:

using (var m = f.BeginMessage(MessageType.Information, "Message title")) {
    @* Message content goes here *@
}

The BeginMessage extension method looks like this:

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a message.
        /// </summary>
        /// <example>
        /// @using (var m = f.BeginMessage(MessageType.Success, "Your submission was successful")) {
        ///     @m.Paragraph(string.Format("Your item was successfully created with id {0}", Model.Id))
        /// }
        /// </example>
        /// <typeparam name="TModel">The view model type for the current view</typeparam>
        /// <param name="form">The form the message is being created in</param>
        /// <param name="messageType">The type of message to display</param>
        /// <param name="heading">The heading for the message</param>
        /// <returns>The message</returns>
        public static Message<TModel> BeginMessage<TModel>(this IForm<TModel> form, MessageType messageType, string heading = null)
        {
            return new Message<TModel>(form, messageType, heading.ToHtml());
        }

The MessageType enum is defined like this and appears in the ChameleonForms.Enums namespace:

    /// <summary>
    /// Types of messages that can be displayed to the user
    /// </summary>
    public enum MessageType
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// User action required.
        /// </summary>
        Action,

        /// <summary>
        /// Action successful.
        /// </summary>
        Success,

        /// <summary>
        /// Action failed.
        /// </summary>
        Failure,

        /// <summary>
        /// Informational message.
        /// </summary>
        Information,

        /// <summary>
        /// Warning message.
        /// </summary>
        Warning
    }

If you want to add paragraphs using the template you can do that by using one of the Paragraph methods as defined above and of course you can use normal HTML or any valid Razor code as well:

using (var m = f.BeginMessage(MessageType.Information, "Message title")) {
    @m.Paragraph("Here is the first part of the message")
    <img src="/path/to/img" alt="alt text" />
    @m.Paragraph(new HtmlString("Here is a <strong>styled</strong> message"))
    @SomeRazorHelperDefinedOnThisPage()
    @Html.Partial("_WooWeCanGetReallyCrazyAndAddPartialsToo_OMG")
}

Default HTML

Begin HTML

      <div class="%messagetype%_message">
          %if heading%<h3>%heading%</h3>%endif%
          <div class="message">

End HTML

          </div>
      </div>

Paragraph HTML

<p>%content%</p>

Twitter Bootstrap 3 HTML

Begin HTML

      <div class="panel panel-%messageType.ToTwitterEmphasisStyle()%">
          %if heading%<div class="panel-heading"><h4 class="panel-title">%heading%</h4></div>%endif%
          <div class="panel-body">

The ToTwitterEmphasisStyle extension method performs the following conversions from the ChameleonForms message types to the Twitter Emphasis Styles:

• Action becomes Primary
• Success becomes Success
• Failure becomes Danger
• Information becomes Info
• Warning becomes Warning
• Anything else becomes Default

End HTML

          </div>
      </div>

Paragraph HTML

Same as default.