Our site creates records for pick lists in an overnight cron job. Only items that are currently in use are put into the list. Obsolete, incorrect, etc. items are omitted. The reasoning is that the user will almost always get a report with non-zero records.

We do not want to create these lists dynamically because:
1. it would take too long and
2. be wasteful of resources to query the same set of tables again and again when the data changes at most once a day.

Our current scheme uses server-side includes of the "prepared" pick lists on a launch page (.html). Since this page goes through the web server, the included list is expanded correctly.

Now to the question.

What are people using to get this same effect when using Power Reporter when the launch page does not go to the web server? In other words, how do people "see" what they are developing?

We have explored:
1. transforming server-side includes into .js files
2. using !IBI.FIL directives

I thought I saw something promising in the 5.3.2 Developing Applications manual (p. 6-64) about using XML files for this sort of thing, but the example is only suggestive, with no complete example.


Thanks for any pointers. Suzy

On Sun unix:
WF Servlet using Tomcat
WF Reporting Server
Focus Databases

On Windows:
WF Power Reporter

All software at release 5.3.2

If I understand what you are saying correctly then we do something similar in a nightly process in using Reportcaster.

We use APP HOLD to permanently save our hold files to the server. The nightly process goes through our tables and chooses active values for our dropdowns and saves this into an alpha hold file.

Our launch page then uses !IBI.FIL.HOLDNAME to put the code into the select box.

If this is what you are looking for send me an email and remind me to post some of the sample code...

Good luck

Hi George

Thanks for your reply.

We can create lists fine--we just don't seem to have the knack for displaying what the pick list ought to look like when a developer is creating a form in Power Reporter. No visual feedback. They might as well use a text editor. For that matter, they might as well not use WebFOCUS at all!

Thanks. Suzy