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Add Navigation Between Forms

Navigation between forms is used all over the application and gives the user a possibility to easily find related information. From a development perspective, there are a couple of mechanisms that provide navigation.

Contents

• Navigate to a Form
• Navigate with Data Transfer
• Start a Dialog

Navigate to a Form

The Application Forms framework provides Zoom functionality to find referenced information. To explicitly navigate from one form to another, the form methods SessionNavigate and SessionNavigateWithParams are used. Typically a navigation is invoked from a context menu item on a form.

Navigate with Data Transfer

To transfer data from one form to another when navigating, you use the framework global object Ifs.Fnd.ApplicationForms.Var.DataTransfer. As a developer it is possible to Create a Standard Data Transfer or Create a Customized Data Transfer.

Start a Dialog

To start a dialog box or a wizard dialog you use the dialogs' static method ModalDialog. This method shall always return either of the constants Sys.IDOK or Sys.IDCANCEL depending on if the user clicks the OK or the Cancel button. Typically a dialog box is started by clicking on a Link Label or by selecting a context menu item.

Start a Dialog dynamically

Dialogs that must be dynamically opened, e.g. when not having a reference to the component that owns the dialog in your project, should use SessionModalDialog.
Optionally, parameters can be passed, both IN and OUT, within the method. The framework will try to find a corresponding static method ModalDialog, one with matching parameter types and, if found, call it dynamically. Therefore, all usage of SessionModalDialog can be done first having defined a static method ModalDialog in the owning component.
By that, the owning component will have a well defined API making it aware of all the "entry points" to the dialog since the only way to open the dialog will be through one of the defined ModalDialog methods.

Start a Dialog dynamically passing arguments

Arguments can be passed within the SessionModalDialog to (IN) the dialog. The return value from SessionModalDialog is the same that is returned from the ModalDialog method (e.g. Sys.IDOK or Sys.IDCANCEL)

Scenario: The dialog dlgCreateChangeOrder, hosted in the CHANGE component, is to be opened from the CONMGT component having four arguments passed to it.
Since the CONMGT component do not have any references to the CHANGE component, it can not use the strongly typed method dlgCeateChangeOrder.ModalDialog and should instead use SessionModalDialog.

public static SalNumber ModalDialog(Control owner, SalString sChangeSourceType, SalString sChangeSourceId, SalString sCompany, SalString sChangeSourceName)
{
   dlgCreateChangeOrder dlg = DialogFactory.CreateInstance<dlgCreateChangeOrder>();
   dlg.sChangeSourceType = sChangeSourceType;
   dlg.sChangeSourceId = sChangeSourceId;
   dlg.sCompany = sCompany;
   dlg.sChangeSourceName = sChangeSourceName;
   SalNumber ret = dlg.ShowDialog(owner);
   return ret;
}

Scenario: The dialog dlgBusinessObjectBySupportKey, hosted in the CALLC component, is to be opened from the SUPKEY component having one argument passed to it and one argument returned from the dialog.
Since the CALLC component do not have any references to the SUPKEY component, it can not use the strongly typed method dlgBusinessObjectBySupportKey.ModalDialog and should instead use SessionModalDialog together with the iDynamicReturnArguemnts interface for returning arguments. Inside ModalDialog, settings of DynamicReturnArguemnts is done naming the out parameter as ATTR, which will result in having the same value(s) available in the out parameter iDynamicReturnArguemnts

public static SalNumber ModalDialog(Control owner, bool callerIsCaseHeader)
{
   dlgBusinessObjectBySupportKey dlg = DialogFactory.CreateInstance<dlgBusinessObjectBySupportKey>();
   dlg.callerIsCaseHeader = callerIsCaseHeader;
   SalNumber ret = dlg.ShowDialog(owner);
   // Set the return argument "ATTR" making it available as out parameter in dynamic SessionModalDialog calls
   dlg.DynamicReturnArguments.Set("ATTR", dlg.sAttr);
   return ret;
}

Note: iDynamicReturnArguments contains several overloaded methods, handling the most common data types (e.g. SalString, SalNumber, SalDateTime)