Setting Hyperlink Properties

Text, tag or image elements used in presentations can represent a hyperlink. When the user clicks on this hyperlink in the Operation Mode the action specified in the hyperlink properties will be performed. The following section explains which properties can be specified in the Hyperlink dialog.

To specify the properties of the hyperlink you need to select the type of the operation (action) and specify parameters specific to each operation type. The following operation types are supported:

This operation type starts a process selected from the list of processes defined in the business space version. If the process has input then you may need to provide the value for this input. Two scenarios are possible:

• If the object defined as the process input is the same as the owner of the presentation, you don’t have to do anything, as the system will automatically provide the input when the process starts.
• If the object defined as the process input is different from the owner of the presentation, then you must specify the input in the “Value” column of the “Process Input Table”. Click on the appropriate cell in the “Value” column and enter the process input as the reference attribute of the presentation owner. For example, let us assume that we are creating a forum management system where we have the Topic and a Forum objects defined. The Topic object has a single reference attribute named Forum that refers to the Forum where the Topic belongs. Let us assume also that we are editing the presentation of the Topic object and we want to define a hyperlink that starts the PostNewTopic process, which allows posting a new topic from the presentation of the existing one. Let us assume that the PostNewTopic process requires Forum object as its input. When defining the hyperlink we would define an operation that starts the PostNewTopic process and we would specify Topic.Forum in the “Value” column of the Process Input Table as process input (note that Topic is the owner of the presentation we are editing).

An operation of this type brings up a form to edit the specified instance of the business object. You need to select the instance of the business object to be edited from the following options:

• Owner of the presentation being edited – this is the current instance of the business object displayed by the presentation.
• Determined by contents of the tag – specify the expression identifying the instance of the business object. This is useful when you want to edit instances of the business objects referred to by the current instance, for example, Transaction.Account.
• Determined by contents of the current tag – this option is available for tag elements only. It indicates that the instance of the business object is determined by the contents of the tag element.

An operation of this type.runs the specified query. You will need to select the query to run from the list of queries defined in the business space version. Note that the instance of the presentation owner may be referred to dynamically by the query (see Configuring Queries).

An operation of this type shows the specified presentation of the specified instance of the business object. You will need to define the business object that owns the presentation to be viewed (see the Edit Business Object operation for the explanation how to do it) and then select the presentation to view.

An operation of this type deletes the specified instance of the business object. You will need to define the business object to delete (see the Edit Business Object operation for the explanation how to do it).

An operation of this type navigates to the specified URL. You will need to select the instance of the business object to be edited from the following options:

1. Specify – specify the URL to navigate to
2. Determined by contents of the tag – specify the expression identifying the URL. This is useful when you want to navigate to the URL which is determined from the value of the Plain Text attribute of some business object, for example, Person.HomePage
3. Determined by contents of the current tag – this option is available for tag elements only. It indicates that the URL is determined by the contents of the tag element.