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[CLOSED]DS 8 HTML Composer

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November 12, 2014, 07:44 AM
MattC
[CLOSED]DS 8 HTML Composer
I have an existing HTML and a program that I built in 7. Now that I am on 8 and 2 years later I have requirements to make some modifications.

I have defaulted a new &Var in my program and have created a new control in my HTML. Now I want to link those together, so I edit my Hyperlink, but when I select the "Additional parameters" I do not see my new &Var in the list.

I have tried removing the program all together and re-adding it as well as adding other &Vars to my program and nothing.

This is a pretty complex HTML with lots of controls and JS and some of this I had to edit in the text editor because I have tree controls in it and it didn't play well in WF 7.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MattC,


WebFOCUS 8.1.05
November 12, 2014, 08:07 AM
MattC
Well I did it the other way and manually added a new parameter and linked those together. I suppose that will work.

I always get "on edge" when I have to modify and add a new parameter in HTML Composer. I have had so much trouble in the past where it either un-links controls or does what ever.

Hopefully this is going to be smoother.


WebFOCUS 8.1.05
November 12, 2014, 11:17 AM
Francis Mariani
I doubt it will be any smoother in Dev Studio 8 which they're putting out to pasture in the near future. We're supposed to enter the brave new world of App Studio 8.


Francis


Give me code, or give me retirement. In FOCUS since 1991

Production: WF 7.7.05M, Dev Studio, BID, MRE, WebSphere, DB2 / Test: WF 8.1.05M, App Studio, BI Portal, Report Caster, jQuery, HighCharts, Apache Tomcat, MS SQL Server
November 13, 2014, 08:48 AM
Kathy P
Matt, We are also on 8.08. Using app studio, composer offers you a huge increase in functionality and capabilities. I would redo it from scratch in app studio 8. You will not be sorry. On the the other hand, you will waste a lot of time putting bandaids on and trying to fix things when they go wrong in dev studio.


Kathy Phillips
Web FOCUS 8.2.05.14, 8.1.05, 8.08, 8.0.7, 8.0.5,8.0.2m, 7.6.10,7.7.03
Windows
November 13, 2014, 09:59 AM
Francis Mariani
quote:
I would redo it from scratch in app studio 8. You will not be sorry

How many WF v7.* HTML Composer screens will you redo from scratch? Every one that you need to make a change to?


Francis


Give me code, or give me retirement. In FOCUS since 1991

Production: WF 7.7.05M, Dev Studio, BID, MRE, WebSphere, DB2 / Test: WF 8.1.05M, App Studio, BI Portal, Report Caster, jQuery, HighCharts, Apache Tomcat, MS SQL Server
November 13, 2014, 10:30 AM
njsden
quote:
Dev Studio 8 which they're putting out to pasture in the near future.


What a sad reality Frowner



Prod/Dev: WF Server 8008/Win 2008 - WF Client 8008/Win 2008 - Dev. Studio: 8008/Windows 7 - DBMS: Oracle 11g Rel 2
Test: Dev. Studio 8008 /Windows 7 (Local) Output:HTML, EXL2K.
November 20, 2014, 11:31 AM
MattC
I understand possibly re-doing some simple HTML's from scratch, but not anything that is extremely complex. At least not at the moment.

I can't even open this particular HTML in App Studio. It gives me an error something about too many lines.


WebFOCUS 8.1.05
November 21, 2014, 10:52 AM
eric.woerle
MattC,

In your fex, have you set the variable to default or defaulth? If you are using DEFAULTH it will not bring it in as a variable because it is hidden.


Eric Woerle
8.1.05M Gen 913- Reporting Server Unix
8.1.05 Client Unix
Oracle 11.2.0.2
November 21, 2014, 12:24 PM
MattC
Using DEFAULT


WebFOCUS 8.1.05
November 21, 2014, 04:21 PM
eric.woerle
Ok,

Another thing that I see happen is that the XML will get corrupted. In DS V8.x I've noticed that the HTML composer tries to put as much as it can on one line. If you happened to have opened it up in the editor, this means that the editor ends up putting in breaks where they don't belong and often will break in the middle of a word or somewhere else its not supposed to. Then when you save it, it saves the break in the wrong place and will ruin the HTML/XML. This is easy to fix though, you just go in and put breaks in where appropriate and format the html/xml in a readable format.

This is probably not your problem though. I'm assuming you haven't opened this up in the text editor in DS 8. Another thing that I've seen is that the XML will store variables that have been "considered" before but not actioned. Sometimes this portion of the XML gets hosed by the editor as well and will give you the experience that you are getting. I forget how I have resolved this in the past... I think I generally would go in to the HTML and delete any bad system generated XML that I find.


Eric Woerle
8.1.05M Gen 913- Reporting Server Unix
8.1.05 Client Unix
Oracle 11.2.0.2
November 21, 2014, 04:27 PM
eric.woerle
MattC,

You also mentioned earlier that sometimes HTML Composer will de-link variables. I have that probably constantly. To resolve it I will go into the xml and add the appropriate request ID tag to the input in question.

I will just manually re-link them. I don't think there is an HTML file in my system that doesn't warn me for having been edited outside of the editor.... I'm just fixing to many things broken by it.

This de-linking of the variables to their requestid's is supposedly fixed and improved in App Studio because there you can actually see which Variables are linked to which RequestIDs and manually link them through the tool if necessary.... Unfortunately that doesn't help you as the HTML won't even open in App Studio anyways


Eric Woerle
8.1.05M Gen 913- Reporting Server Unix
8.1.05 Client Unix
Oracle 11.2.0.2
November 24, 2014, 08:01 AM
MattC
quote:
Originally posted by eric.woerle:
Ok,

Another thing that I see happen is that the XML will get corrupted. In DS V8.x I've noticed that the HTML composer tries to put as much as it can on one line. If you happened to have opened it up in the editor, this means that the editor ends up putting in breaks where they don't belong and often will break in the middle of a word or somewhere else its not supposed to. Then when you save it, it saves the break in the wrong place and will ruin the HTML/XML. This is easy to fix though, you just go in and put breaks in where appropriate and format the html/xml in a readable format.




This is a pretty big problem as App Studio will not open your HTML once this happens. Once I shortened the lines it would open in AS.

Surprisingly, in DS 8 I haven't had any un-linking of controls but in the past in WF 7 I would have to go in and adjust the "requestids"


WebFOCUS 8.1.05