Standard Grid
Select this option if you want Aware IM to display the found instances in a standard manner where every instance is displayed as a row in a table – see Standard Form of Query Results.
If you select this option you can also specify the following:
Attributes to display
You can specify which attributes of the business object or group will be displayed in the table. To do this tick the checkbox next to the required attributes. Use the Up and Down arrow buttons to change the order in which attribute values will be displayed on the standard screen. You can also specify how the attribute will be displayed – the value of the attribute only, the value and icon or the icon only. Icons are displayed according to presentation rules for icon elements – see Common Properties. You can also specify width of each column in pixels or percents (to specify width in percents add % symbol, for example 50%), column alignment and whether or not the attribute will be editable (provided “Inline editing” checkbox is ticked – see below).
The dialog displayed when you click the “Edit…” button allows you to specify the following additional properties of the column:
- Column Label – the default label for the column is the one defined for the attribute, but you can override this value and provide query-specific label
- Display format – you can specify query-specific format of the attribute display. For example, you can define a dollar symbol in front of the number - $#.00
- ID – you can define a unique id of the column to be used in the Tour feature
- Use Attribute Styles – if an attribute has presentation rules for STYLE elements) see Common Properties) you can get the query to display the attribute with these styles
- Lock - lock a particular column of the grid so that it is always displayed on the screen even when you scroll the screen
- Column Display – you can hide certain columns initially (with or without conditions). The user can then turn the display of the column on if necessary (Column Menu must be turned on for the grid)
- Column Display and Editing - you can specify which widgets will be used to display and/or edit values in this column (see also a video about it: 76. Inline Editing Widgets). Normally Aware IM picks a default widget for editing - for example, input control for text, combo-box for text with choices, checkbox for the Yes/No attributes and so on. However, it is possible to specify some non-standard widgets to display and edit attribute values. These are:
- “Switch” widget for a Yes/No attribute
- Toggle button for Yes/No attributes and Text attributes with choices (the color of the button is taken from the presentation rules of the corresponding attribute if defined)
- Button Group widget for Text attribute with choices (the color of the button is taken from the presentation rules of the corresponding attribute if defined)
- Rating widget for Number attributes storing rating value.
- Screen Responsiveness – these options help to make the grid responsive to screen size changes. You can turn visibility of the column on or off depending on the available screen size. You can also make the column bigger or smaller.
- Column Grouping – you can group a number of column headers under a certain name. When you select the same group name to a number of columns all columns with the same name will be displayed under the header with this group name (see the picture below)
- Summary - you can specify a “summary” that will be displayed at the bottom of the grid for this column. This could be useful when, for example, you want to calculate a sum total of values displayed by the query and display it at the bottom of the table. When entering a summary you can use expressions in tags and HTML. For example, the following summary will display sum total of account balances found by a query in bold and right aligned:
<p align='right'><b>Total balance: <<SUM Account.Balance>></b></p>
tip
If you want to display values of attributes of the referred instances you will need to define shortcut attributes that refer to the required attributes – see Reference Attributes and Setting Properties of Shortcut Attributes.Calculated columns
You can define “pseudo” columns that will only be used to display calculations based on the values of other columns. If the calculation is only displayed in a particular query you don’t need to go through the trouble of defining a special calculated attribute and a rule to calculate this attribute. Instead you can just define a calculated column in the query. This technique is also much more efficient performance-wise, as the calculations will be embedded inside the SQL that is generated when the query runs. To do this you need to click on the “Add Calculation” link above the table of displayed attributes. You should then provide the name of the pseudo column (has to be unique among all other displayed columns) and the calculation to perform, for example:
Obj.Attr1 + Obj.Attr2
Operations with records
You can also define operations that the user can invoke with the instances of the business object shown in query results. The operation types are exactly the same as those that can be invoked from a form of a business object (see Adding/Editing Form Operations). Each operation is represented as a hyperlink that the user can click to invoke the operation. Operations defined here will be located next to the query items. One of the operations can be designated as a detault operation. The default operation will be executed if the user clicks anywhere on the row of data – not only on the icon representing the operation.
Items per Page
Specify the number of instances to display on each page (if there are more instances found by the query than the specified number, other instances may be navigated to using the traversal buttons automatically generated in the standard query results screen).
note
If you select Unlimited as number items per page the query will be displayed without any paging at all. The user will be able to scroll through very large sets of data without having to list the pages. Aware IM will automatically download the required data from the server during scrolling.Width, Height
Specify the width and height of the query results table in pixels. If you do not specify any values the results table will occupy all available width and the height will be calculated automatically.
Stretch to the bottom of the screen
If this option is selected Aware IM will automatically stretch the grid showing query results, so that its paging bar is aligned with the bottom of the screen.
Allow inline editing
Tick this box if you want to enable user to modify the instances of the objects found by the query directly in the table. This is similar to inline editing of references.
Use popup editor
This option is only available if inline editing is on. There are two ways inline editing can be done – using the standard editor and using the popup editor. The standard editor lets you edit each cell individually while the popup editor displays a popup window for the entire row. With the standard editor changes are saved after the user leaves the current cell and with the popup editor the changes are saved only when the user clicks on the Update button for the entire row.
Number rows
Tick this box to show item numbers next to each row
Show column menu
If you tick this checkbox each column header in the table will have a button that allows user to hide/show certain columns.
Show paging bar
If you tick this checkbox paging bar is displayed for the table. You can further control how paging bar is displayed if you click on the More… button
Display paging bar only when necessary
If you tick this checkbox paging bar will be displayed only if query results have multiple pages (“Show paging bar” checkbox must be ticked)
Select first record
If you tick this checkbox the first record in the table will be selected when the table is displayed. Using this option is especially useful if you also define a default item operation for the query. In this case this operation will be automatically executed for the first record when the query is displayed.
Pagebar Controls
- Show previous and next buttons
- Show buttons with page numbers
- Show input control to enter page number to navigate to
- Allow user selecting size of the page returned by the query (from the More dialog)
These are all different options of the pagebar control. Their meaning is self-explanatory.
Fetch records for all pages at once (More dialog)
If you tick this checkbox Aware IM will display all records found by the query on a single page – no matter how many there are.
Mobile style rendering of inline edits and filtering on mobile devices
If screen real estate is limited Aware IM can use a different user interface for inline editing and filters. This option should be turned on if the query with inline editing and/or filtering is to be used on mobile phones.
There are also some properties specific to the Standard presentation available in the Element Properties window for the query:
Filters
See this section: Query Filters
Grouping
Click this property to group displayed instances based on the specified attribute. All instances with the same value of the attribute will be displayed together. It will be possible to expand and collapse the node with these values (see the picture below – on this picture issues are grouped based on the value of the “Status” attribute.
You can group by more than one attribute (click the “Add” button to add attributes to group by). For each attribute you can provide the HTML template with which the header of the group will be displayed. You can refer to some predefined values in the template by enclosing them in #= … #
symbols, for example:
#=value#
The following predefined values can be used:
- value - the current group value
- field - the current group field
- average - the value of the “average” aggregate (if specified)
- count - the value of the “count” aggregate (if specified)
- max - the value of the “max” aggregate (if specified)
- min - the value of the “min” aggregate (if specified)
- sum - the value of the “sum” aggregate (if specified)
The default template is:
#=value#(#=count# items)
So if you group by issue status, for exmaple, you get this as group headers:
Open (5 items)
…
Closed (10 items)
…
You can also optionally display a summary for each group. Usually this applies to number attributes. For example, if your query displays account balances you can display sub-total of balances per each group. The style of the summary can be specified in the Presentation column. You can refer to the value of the summary using the {Value} construct, for example: Total balance in a group is {Value}
You can also allow end users to define their own grouping. Users would do this by dragging the attribute they want to group by into a special area above the query. You can define which attributes users will be able to group by as well as the template of the header of the group.
Load data on demand
Tick this checkbox to force the system to load data belonging to a group when the group is expanded. When this option is specified all groups are initially collapsed and the data is loaded when the user expands the group. This is very useful when a query represents large sets of data.
Display summaries for all groups
If you have several attributes defined for grouping (in other words if you have several groups) summaries are displayed by default for the last group only. Selecting this option allows you to specify summaries for each group.
Hide summaries displayed in the header when the group is expanded
Summaries can be displayed either in the header of the group or in the footer or both. If you defined both headers and footers for a group you have an option of hiding summary for the header when the group is expanded (so that the user only sees the summary in the footer. The footer (if defined) is always displayed when a group is expanded.
Expansion of rows
Clicking on this property allows you to specify what happens when the row in the grid is expanded (if anything). The following options are available:
Do not allow expansion of grid rows
This is the default option. The user cannot expand rows
Show values of attributes using template
If this option is selected Aware IM will show the specified HTML template. Usually you would display values of attributes (some long text, for example) here, such as on the picture below that shows the HTML message of the email communication:
Show results of the operation below
When this option is selected Aware IM will execute the specified operation when the row is expanded. This is a really powerful option that allows you to define forms inside grids, related grids (grid hierarchy and so on). The picture below shows the form of the customer whose record has been expanded:
Reordering
Clicking on this property allows you to enable users to reorder items in the table. This is explained in detail in the “How to implement Item Reordering” section of the “How To” Guide.
When mouse over record
This dialog allows you to specify what happens when the user hovers the mouse over the record in the query results table. The following options are available:
- Do nothing – this is the default value
- Display a default form showing all attributes – when this option is selected Aware IM will display a form with values of all attributes displayed by the query
- Display a default form showing attributes hidden initially – same as the previous one, but the form only shows those columns that have been marked as “hidden initially: