- HTML: Code Assoc. , Reference Assoc., & Assoc. Java Ops.

HTML Code Association

Essentially an HTML Code operation with association capabilities, this type of association allows you to

link to some specified HTML. This is an exceptionally powerful feature in WOW and is often used for

stylizing reports and other data.

Full Field Rendering

[WOW 6.45] Includes enhanced support for HTML Code Association scripting. New support includes

the following features, which are coded directly into the HTML Code Association. The special character of "*"

appended as the last character indicates that WOW should generate the entire field rendering, not just the

value. For example, a field with an association referenced with ??Field will only display the value and not a

hyperlink-capable rendering. However ??Field* would render the entire hyperlink HTML code.

NOTE: In all cases, the fields can only be used for display and not for updating databases.

HTML Reference Operation

You can add links to any external website from a WOW application. In the following example we are showing a list of customers from a classic car business. It might be useful for the customers to directly link to a car website like Edmunds to check auto values. Here is the application running with the customer list.

To add a link to Edmunds.com, create a new operation with operation type set to HTML Reference. Within the operation code enter the website, as shown below.

Once you have updated the operation, refresh the application and the link will appear.

Clicking on the link will then lead you to the website you entered into the operation.

More commonly, in business, it might be necessary to serve documents or agreements within an application. In my current example you can provide your customer with an agreement also using an HTML Reference operation. Documents or images can be stored directly on the Tomcat web server within the existing WOW context where your applications are running from. The path to the file must be relative to the directory of the HTML file.

Here we have filed a general customer agreement within our running WOW context.

Alternatively referred to as the file path and full path, the absolute path is a path that contains the root directory and all other subdirectories that contain a file or folder. Below are some examples of absolute and relative paths.

For further information on absolute paths go to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/181805/absolute-path-relative-path

To link to that same image file using a relative path you must follow the steps below. First create the operation, change the operation type to HTML Reference, and in the operation code enter the path of where the file is stored on the internal server.

Once you have updated the operation, refresh the application and the link will appear.

When you click on the link, it will then redirect you to the file you entered into the operation, as shown below.

HTML Reference Association

In this association, rather than linking the data between two tables, records, or Rows, it is linking the current data with some HTML reference. For instance, take the example listed below. The results have a bunch of Rows with address information. Each Row also contains a derived field. Derived Fields that have its association set a HTML Reference Association that links to MapQuest®.

Clicking the "View Map" link on the first record would bring up the following:

Associated Java Operation

[PRO] Actual calls to Java methods can be executed via an Associated Java Operation. These methods must be static and all of their parameters must be of type java.lang.String, with the exception of a few special cases listed below. This operation has specific signature that is used to accomplish this task. The name of the class, name of the method to be called, and the parameters to the method are separated by the "pipe" special character which is designated as the vertical bar '|'. The first part of the operation is the fully qualified class name of the class that the method is to be executed on. The second part of the operation is the name of the method that will be called on the fully qualified class. This method must be static since there will not be a specific instance of the fully qualified class. Every part thereafter is a treated as a String parameter to the method.

For example, if we have a class planetj.examples.Log that has method writeEntry which takes an entry argument that writes and entry to a log located on the file system, it would be called in the following manner:

planetj.examples.Log|writeEntry|Calling Java method from an operation

This would result in the method writeEntry in the class planetj.examples.Log to be executed with the String argument of "Calling Java method from an Operation."

There are certain parameters that can be specified that will automatically be filled in with their associated values.

For example, if we have a class planetj.examples.Log that has a method logParameterValues which takes an HttpServletRequest object that writes all of the current parameters on that request to the file system, it would be called in the following manner:

planetj.examples.Log|logParameterValues|*REQUEST

The Associated Java Operation also allows for dynamic entries from the current Row that is associated with the Operation. For example, if we have an Associated Java Operation that has the Make, Model, and Year of vehicles and the names of the columns in this row are specifically "MAKE", "MODEL", and "YEAR", these values can be passed to a Java method in the following manner:

planetj.examples.Log|logCarMakeModelYear|??MAKE¿|??MODEL¿|??YEAR¿

The dynamic entries must be designated by start and end characters in order for WOW to determine the beginning and end of the column name. The start characters are '??' and the corresponding ending character is "¿" (this character can be typed by using ALT+0191).