Can I use a user macro as a placeholder and replace it with an xhtml macro afterwards?

[Georg Kapeller]

hi,

we are now using some (velocity-driven) user macros but I'd like to replace them with a more powerful (java-based) xhtml-macro later on.

Is it possible to declare the xhtml-macro in a way that it can substitute the user macro, given that it has the same parameters?

[Bill Bailey · Accepted solution]

Yes, I have done something similar where I started with a user macro, then repackaged it later as a plugin for easier deployment. And yes it is recommended to delete the user macro code before.

[Georg Kapeller]

I did some research on my own: Although I am not aware of any undiscovered side-effects, this appears to work. (When loaded via atlas-mvn package) the xhtml-macro appears to take precedence over an existing user code macro in view&edit mode. However I guess it might be a better idea to delete the user macro first and then register an xhtml macro with the same name - at least with 6.0.2 this worked well.