Hello,

We have a drill-down menu issue in IE8.

Problem:
When our analyst built report with too much parameters (too much measures for example), the drill menu don’t appear anymore.


Our analysis:
We found out that the problem come from the construction of the drill-down menu.
Indeed the drill-menu in WebFOCUS 7.6.10 is construct through an href tag. Exemple :
< a HREF="java_script:MDitemClick[16,'SHOW_PANE=N&DRILL_NAME …”>clic to see the menu
So when our analyst put more that 10 measures in a report, there are to much parameter in the drill menu and the href length is too large for IE8.
We found that the limit maximum length for href tag is 4096. There are not issue with firefox but the security policy force use to use IE8. So we try use “google frame add-ons”, known the menu appear but it appear at the bottom of the page ! Dam it !
So please guys have you any ideas or work around to solve this problem. Because this is an issue, we cannot construct complex report with PMF.

Report example:
Report with issue (the "centre financier" link length is 4097) -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10555419/pageKO.html
Report with NO issue (the "centre financier" link length is 4096) -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10555419/pageOK.html
Warning, for this example the base href is :
BASE HREF="http://localhost:8080/approot/(get_first_token_error)/"


Thanks,

IE is worse than you think. The limit is 1K not 4K.

We worked around this IE limitation with WebFOCUS multi-drills in the 5.1 track and onward. A JS function in pmf_lib.js moves all WebFOCUS multi-drill URLs to a JS array and POSTs the URL values. So that eliminates the 1K limitation. Ordinary WebFOCUS multi-drills hit the 1K limitation. We also compress the Dimension paths using a delimiter character to further expand our drill capability. This avoids this IE limitation, which is btw, totally unnecessary and a result of Microsoft having an agenda following Web standards in IE6,7,8.

However your URLs are shorter than 4K so you should have no issue. What is happening is that you are somehow settings BASE HREF which defeats our ability to call the function from pmf_lib.js. You can't do that. Put your JS function in a location where you can reference it absolutely and your problem will most likely go away.

Lastly, this type of issue is really for CSS, not for the forum. If you are still having an issue you will need to provide your custom FOCEXECs to CSS with a complete repro path.

thanks!

Hi Carlos,

Significant improvements to the multi-drills (and elsewhere) have been made since the PMF version 521. I would recommend looking into upgrading PMF to a newer release and then utilizing our workarounds for the drill downs. As Bob mentioned, you can contact CSS for assistance.

On a side note: I discourage the use of the google frame addon in IE as I've seen acute instances where this has caused unforeseen other problems.

Best Regards,
Mike

Thanks guys, you’ve point out an issue in our install.

In our PMF the tag "BASE HREF" appear all the time but not in the standard install.


Multi-drill in a standard report (TABLE FILE CAR):

<TITLE>WebFOCUS Report</TITLE>
 [B]<BASE HREF="http://localhost:8080/approot/debug/">[/B] 
<script language='javascript'> 
var ibiOptions = new Array("multidrill");
var focexurl = "/ibi_apps/WFServlet?IBIF_webapp=/ibi_apps&IBIC_server=EDASERVE&IBIWF_msgviewer=OFF&IBIAPP_app=debug&";
var fochtmlurl = "/ibi_html";
var serverLanguage='en';
</script>
<script language='javascript' src='/ibi_html/javaassist/nls.js'></script>
<script language='javascript' src='/ibi_html/javaassist/ibi/html/js/ibigbl.js'></script>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">

Multi-drill in PMF 5.2.3 (not our version - PC in standalone) report : -> don’t have BASE REF tag

<TITLE>WebFOCUS Report</TITLE>
<script language='javascript'> 
var ibiOptions = new Array("ibicookie", "cgipath", "/approot/mainstreet/js/prototype.js", "/approot/mainstreet/js/scriptaculous.js", "/approot/mainstreet/js/modalbox.js", "/approot/mainstreet/pmf_bootstrap.js", "multidrill");
var focexurl = "/ibi_apps/WFServlet?IBIF_webapp=/ibi_apps&IBIC_server=EDASERVE&IBIWF_msgviewer=OFF&";
var fochtmlurl = "/ibi_html";
var serverLanguage='en';
</script>
<script language='javascript' src='/ibi_html/javaassist/nls.js'></script>
<script language='javascript' src='/ibi_html/javaassist/ibi/html/js/ibigbl.js'></script>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">

Multi-drill in our PMF (5.2.1) :

 
<TITLE>Nouveau rapport</TITLE>
<BASE HREF="http://localhost:8080/approot/(get_first_token_error)/">
<script language='javascript'>
var ibiOptions = new Array("ibicookie", "/approot/mainstreet/js/prototype.js", "/approot/mainstreet/pmf_lib.js", "multidrill");
var focexurl = "/ibi_apps/WFServlet?IBIF_webapp=/ibi_apps&IBIC_server=EDASERVE&IBIWF_msgviewer=OFF&IBIAPP_app=&";
var fochtmlurl = "/ibi_html";
var serverLanguage='en';
</script>
<script language='javascript' src='/ibi_html/javaassist/nls.js'></script>
<script language='javascript' src='/ibi_html/javaassist/ibi/html/js/ibigbl.js'></script>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">

Why in the standard version of PMF the BASE REF tag disappeared and why is it still included in our install ?
We create a srv76 only for PMF, we isolate the tool (by the way -> thanks Mark ! ) now it’s only sharing the WebFOCUS client.

We don’t understand why we don’t have the same behavior that in our standalone install ? Have you any ideas?

This could be caused by any number of reasons, but let me assure you none of them come from PMF's install program or from our own code in the PMF application. We don't use BASE HREF, as it's generally a bad technique used to hack your way around logical problems in your web app.

* Customization in all these FOCEXECs could have been done - not a recommended one, but one nonetheless.
* You could have another app in your server path that overloads these files
* There could be a script in site.wfs to inject the base href
* The web server or some plug in in your web server could be injecting it.
* Something else.

I recommend you eliminate the first possibility by looking at the physical installed files in /ibi/apps/mainstreet.

In any event, you have to solve this one by checking around and looking down pathways.


hope this helps.

Hi Carlos,

If I understand you correctly everything appears to be working ok in the standalone 523 version?

This should have nothing to do with the tag that you notice is missing when viewing the source. PMF extends standard IBI multi-drill down functionality. This is done so that there is no limit to size of data to be passed down via drill downs.

What you do not see when viewing the source for PMF523 are the improvements to the PMF extension of IBI's multi-drill down that are not visible when doing a view source.

Cheers!
Mike

Ok,

In standalone we don't have enough measures to test. But is the BASEREF is not an issue all have to work perfectly with PMF 5.2.3.

We plan to upgrade the last version in June.

Wait and see...

Thx