Computing rendered property of xp:messages control - xpages

On my xpage I have an xp:messages for which I have adapted the UI to Boostrap/corporate standard.
Therefor I have placed the control inside a xp:panel control.
I wonder how I could compute the rendered property of this panel based upon if the xp:messages control has any items in it or not. I could not find an answer on SO.

If you display inside the message component an error, you can check the FacesContext.getMessage()
For more details see the answer, Get error messages

Related

How to open a document in a dynamiccontent control facet from a viewpanel control

I have a dynamiccontent control on a XPage with a facet containing a custom control which has a viewpanel in it. I also have a second facet in the dynamiccontent control containing a custom control which is connected to a document data source.
What I am trying to figure out is when the viewpanel custom control is loaded in the dynamiccontent how do I get the links in the viewpanel custom control to load the dynamiccontent facet containing the custom control connected to the document data source and display the document?
I think the Dynamic Content example in the Extension Library Demo database is self explaining. It use also a view and a document
Well I'ver always found ViewPanels to be very limiting if you want to do anything fancy. I don't think you can easily use any of the built in features. I would personally use a Repeat Control and then have a button that takes the intended document and gets the unid. You can then put that unid into a viewScope variable, change your dynamic content control to the document facet and have that custom control get the unid from viewScope to get the correct document.
I long time ago I did a rather crappy demo that showed a couple of these techniques. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLAy6U2_3A
The CSS attempt failed there but you should be able to see a repeat control and putting the unid into scope etc. It might help you a little.

Xpages add a custom control that doesn't take up space (rendered versus loaded versus visible)

I have some custom controls that I want to include in Xpages, but I don't want them to be visible to the user or to take up space on the screen, as it is throwing my alignment off. I have looked at the properties rendered, loaded, and visible, but I don't really understand them and they don't seem to do what I want, which is to include some functionality but not change the layout.
I am sure there is a way to do this, but I can't figure it out.
Loaded means it won't be added to the component tree and only affects server-side functionality. Because it's not in the component tree (the server-side map of the page) it can't be passed to the browser or processed during partial refreshes. Rendered and visible are the same and mean they're in the component tree, so server-side processing can interact with them, but no HTML is passed to the browser for them. So you can't interact with them via CSJS. If you want it passed to the browser, available for CSJS but not visible to the user, you'll need to set the style as display:none. Another option is to put that style in a theme and allocate the themeId you choose to your custom control.

Can you compute which custom control to use?

Think "computed subform", but in Xpages.
On one of my custom controls, depending on a certain value, I want to either present a custom control that renders a drop-down list using a combobox or renders an input box with a type-ahead.
This is on a custom control that renders a view, with all view configuration choices handled by a document rather than design, so several different views utilize the same custom control.
For example: I have a By Status view using the custom control that has status as the first column and we use a combobox to allow the user to select which Status value to filter by. Another view is sorted by Requisition number and I want to use a type-ahead instead of the combobox.
My preference is to use the same dynamic view custom control for both and have a formula that determines which of the two (comboBox or inputText) to use. How do I compute which custom control to load?
(Credit for the dynamic view control goes to Scott Good's folks over at Teamworks Solutions.)
During it's life cycle, an XPage exists in two places. First of all a representation of the XPage's relevant components is stored on the server. Then the page goes through a lifecycle, retrieving properties from documents, checking which components should be rendered, retrieving the data for any repeating control such as a View Panel etc., and passing the relevant HTML to the browser. The browser is the second place it exists.
So you can't compute a custom control as such. All you can do is set the loaded property, and loaded needs to be based on a non-dynamic calculation such as a viewScope variable, the current XPage name, a view name stored on the XPage etc. What you would have difficulty doing would be using a different custom control based on data on that row entry.
The other option is the Dynamic Content control or Switch control from the Extension Library. Both are similar to using the loaded property, in that you're putting both custom controls on the page and choosing which to display.
From what you're describing, the loaded property should cover what you need.
Some time back I saw this question on StackOverflow where the author had used Include Page control (xp:include) to include custom controls using pageName attribute based on formula.
<xp:include>
<xp:this.pageName><![CDATA[${javascript:sessionScope.ccPageName + ".xsp";}]]> </xp:this.pageName>
</xp:include>
Similar to the technique described by Paul Withers in his answer the attribute of pageName is also computed on page load.

xpages dojo validation textbox required

I have dojo validation textbox in my xpage with required property computed (compute dynamically) as below
var syn = getComponent("SynCboxGrp").getValue();
if (syn == "Yes")
{return true;
}else{
return false;
}
Here the component SynCboxGrp is radio button. The text box is required based on the radio button value. But its not working properly. Changing radio button value doesnt change the required behaviour.
Appreciate any help
Update
Thanks stwissel, Per Henrik Lausten and Eric.
I only have this ssjs in required property
<xe:djValidationTextBox id="UBOCAgent" value="#{dsRacDoc.UBOCAgent}" disableClientSideValidation="true">
<xe:this.required><![CDATA[#{javascript:var syn = getComponent("SynCboxGrp").getValue();
if (syn == "Yes")
{
return true;
}else{
return false;
}
}]]></xe:this.required>
</xe:djValidationTextBox>
I also tried this partial refresh code on my radio button onclick event XSP.partialRefreshGet("#{id:UBOCAgent}");
This still doesnt change the behaviour. It works based on the initial radio button value. On the negative side since its a get request it updates the field content from the server. I also tried Eric's suggestion disable client validation but that didnt help.
Eric, I am also trying to go with CSJS wherever possible but in this case the required property only has the SSJS option. So not sure how to try CSJS. Should i try creating my own dojo field instead of using one from entension lib? If so i am not sure how to compute required property for that. If you can help me with some sample code that would be great help.
Thanks for your time.
You're doing a partialRefreshGet, which is updating the Dojo Validation Text Box. But you never post back the updated value from the radio, so the server-side value for the radio button is still the initial value. Consequently, required is still false.
Check the markup when required is true on the Dojo Validation Text Box, but the validation triggers client-side, so there should be an attribute in the markup that you can manipulate via CSJS, if that is your preferred route.
Do you have particular latency issues that you need to work around? Picking up on this and the other question you have about doing a lookup to a database on click of a button, you're hitting a few problems. I don't know how experienced you are in XPages development, but it's not an approach I would recommend without a good understanding of client-side output and server-side component trees. The initial page load of your XPage will also be slower and the size of the HTML passed to the browser will be larger, because of the amount of CSJS passed to the browser.
I would recommend using the in-built partial refresh except for situations where browser to server network is a significant issue, and only then falling back to coding your own partial refresh posting a subset of data. In my experience, it's easier and quicker to develop, easier to debug and more flexible.
For this particular scenario, regardless of whether you code the partial refresh yourself or use inbuilt functionality, one point I'm not certain of is this. That once you set validation on the Dojo Validation Text Box, that validation runs client-side and may impact any attempt to un-set the required property by posting to the server. I haven't tested, so can't be certain.
One of two things:
as previously mentioned, to trigger your SSJS value change, ensure a partial (at least) refresh of the element containing your above code; can be done with a container element. Also, check to see if your field's disableClientSideValidation parameter is set (All Properties view).
convert your SSJS code (which merely returns a binary assessment of a Yes or otherwise, I'm assuming No, value) to CSJS
Of late, after the primary development of my current project, I have started favoring the CSJS approach, for the sake of decreasing server-side call backs; most especially in situations where display/rendering of a component is all I'm trying to achieve. If you go this route, remember that dojo.byId("#{id:myControlsServerNameHere}").value (for a text field, see below for scraping a radio button value) combined with setting the display or visible CSS properties can be very handy. As the docs describe, if you want it to exist on the page but not show (for formatting purposes, also, can preserve default value), go the visibility route, otherwise display property.
The CSJS scrape of radio values that I'm currently using is as follows:
var result=null;
for(i=0; i<document.forms[0].elements.length;i++){
if(document.forms[0].elements[i].name=="#{id:serverNameOfRadioElement}"){
if(document.forms[0].elements[i].checked == true){
result=document.forms[0].elements[i].value;
break;
}
}
}
//then handle your result, either with an if, or switch statement
Hope this helps. If there's more you're having trouble with, post back with more code to give the bigger picture.

MasterPage and UserControl Interaction

I have a situation where I need to update a control referenced in a masterpage from a control that is referenced from the content page. Below is hierarhcy:
MainMasterPage
BreadCrumbUserControl(a user control) - has a public string property
ContentPage(uses MainMasterPage)
DataUserControl
I want to be able to update the exposed property of BreadCrumbUserControl from DataUserControl on pageLoad.
I was able to update the BreadCrumbUserControl property just fine from the ContentPage. When i try to do the same DataUserControl's pageLoad method, the update is ignored because of page life cycle.
How can I go about achieving this? I can think of doing something on the clientside using hiddenField and such, but wanted to see if there is a better solution.
Thanks for your help.
It is possible to do what you are asking but I wouldn't. I would raise an event from the "DataUserControl" and handle it in the page. Then the page class can update the master page's control value. This will reduce coupling of your controls and the page they are used on.

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