How can I refresh a Presentation?

Jaymer

I'm on a grid.
I click on a line and VIEW OBJECT / Presentation

When in the presentation, if I click on a Tag Expression that uses a Hyperlink to run a process,
I cannot seem to find a way to REFRESH the Presentation to show updated data after the process completes.

Likewise, when I return to the Grid, there doesn't seem to be a facility to refresh the grid (because a process wasn't used to call the Presentation)

hpl123

Jaymer wrote
I'm on a grid.
I click on a line and VIEW OBJECT / Presentation

When in the presentation, if I click on a Tag Expression that uses a Hyperlink to run a process,
I cannot seem to find a way to REFRESH the Presentation to show updated data after the process completes.

Likewise, when I return to the Grid, there doesn't seem to be a facility to refresh the grid (because a process wasn't used to call the Presentation)

Are you using presentations extensively? I haven´t used them for years and didn´t think people used them that much any longer. Why are you using presentation and not one of the other options? (just curious 🙂 ).

ACDC

Are you using presentations extensively? I haven´t used them for years and didn´t think people used them that much any longer. Why are you using presentation and not one of the other options? (just curious 🙂 ).

me to, never ever used it, ever.... maybe there is a good case for it in some situations. I recall it cumbersome with limitations.
Could it be useful for drill-down reporting?

Jaymer

here's one of my presentations:

Since the presentation uses the Report writer mechanism, then you have more pixel-control than you do messing around with an Aware form.
Basically, all nice complex reports you've done you can have on a screen.
But you can't enter any data.
But you CAN have a button (i have Hyperlinks) to open a form, run a process, etc.

Lets say I had a Product Review presentation for an Inventory Item.
Since its a report, I can have subreports.
And they don't have to be related [with peer References] to the Item I am reviewing.
Example. If I was using an Aware Form for Item AAA, then I'd be limited to related data I could show on the screen. What if I wanted "Last 10 Sales" or "Top 5 Customers who have purchased this item". The only way to add a Grid onto a Form is if that table is a Reference table. But thats not required for a report "Subreport". I could make all sorts of mini-grid or charts to show data related to the Item I am reviewing. And have exact font sizing, etc. Something a Form is not designed to do. And when I build the Query to feed the subreport it doesn't have to use reference fields (which cause overhead elsewhere in Aware).

One issue I have here is if I click a Hyperlink and it changes the main Status of the item, after it runs, the data doesn't change. Because there's no Refresh. And no refresh button (no panel operations, no panel toolbox).
This displays in a Tab, so to close it, you have to click the [x] in the Tab.

No, its not perfect.
I think the Presentation thingy is pretty bad ass!
WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW if Aware sees it being enhanced or phased out?

Mark has a really nice detailed Employee Time Off request.
A bunch of data you can review, and then 2 big buttons [Approve] [Deny].

ACDC

One issue I have here is if I click a Hyperlink and it changes the main Status of the item, after it runs, the data doesn't change. Because there's no Refresh. And no refresh button (no panel operations, no panel toolbox).

I am thinking of using presentations for a complex report setup, just wondering if this could be the answer

In some Accounting systems there are drill-down report layouts, Quick-Books comes to mind, they use a Refresh button, if you change the parameters you need to hit the refresh button to update the report. Just wondering in your case, a Refresh button that re-creates the report may work ?

hpl123

Cool use of presentations. I do something similar but I instead use an entire VP tab as my "report" i.e I often use the VP and it´s content panels as "pages" that has different things so if I open up a form, that form can then have various related things, charts and whatever and all of these things are shown as separate content panels on the 1 page and all content is tied together with a ID kept in SystemSettings or LIRU. Works beautifully and also all refresh is automatically as the content panels have various auto refresh triggers configured.

Jaymer

ACDC wrote
In some Accounting systems there are drill-down report layouts, Quick-Books comes to mind, they use a Refresh button, if you change the parameters you need to hit the refresh button to update the report. Just wondering in your case, a Refresh button that re-creates the report may work ?

In mine and Mark's case, the Presentation is a single record, so report parms are not going to change.
Since Presentations were created years ago, they've added (or we've discovered) ways to close a tab, for example, via JS. I just didn't want to put more effort into it at this time.

My refresh issue is after a process has been called by a Hyperlink. Yes, if I close the tab, then when re-displayed it will certainly show the updated values. It just doesn't have the Auto-Refresh properties like a Form does.

Jaymer

hpl123 wrote
I do something similar but I instead use an entire VP tab as my "report"

Sure, have that many places in my app - but when I finally decided to dig into Presentations I wanted to see how/when/why to use it.
here's my only other example:

This also is called from a Grid to review an alert condition thats been raised.
The user can see ALL DATA at one time (just like on a report) BUT the Repair Order #s are hyperlinks and a click shows a Popup so more details can be seen. (ie. Drill Down)

No way to do this with a VP and multiple panels. Yes, if there was only 1 Note per Repair (but there's multiple).
And yes, if it was interactive, the user can click on the left side and the notes could display on the right, but then you only see notes for the "active" Repair thats been clicked on.

The Presentation joins the precise-placement ability of Reports (plus easily add charts or other elements) with the interactive side of being able to do something 'on-click':

Start Process
Edit object
Run Query
View another Presentation
Delete record
Display URL

Like I said initially, would be nice to know what future plans there are for this? Or will upcoming Grid/Form changes be able to do all this?

nhofkes

Jaymer,
When you are able to do something 'on-click', such as Start Process or view another Presentation, can't you use one of those possibilities to create a refresh link (or button) to refresh your presentation?