Operation from a Form - EDIT action

pixerp

When you start a process from a form operation, a rule with an EDIT action always opens a "modal" panel.

This prevents using any operation from the edited form, unless I'm doing something wrong.

Example:

. Form Organization having reference to Contacts displayed as Table of items. In that table of items, I define an operation to start process "CallContact"

. Process CallContact has a rule CREATE Call with ... and another rule to EDIT Call USING 'EditCall'

. Form EditCall has an operation defined to start process 'Link to ExternalDB'

Operation 'Link to..' will not be displayed because the EditCall form is in a modal panel.

Is there a workaround ? Will the configuration tool offer some control to the "modal" behaviour in a near future (like DISPLAY URL .. IN MAIN) ?

Thanks

aware_support

Currently a process always operates in the modal window. This is by design to prevent users from going away from the process and leaving it a "limbo" state, possibly making the whole system inconsistent.

pixerp

This is a big restriction compared to V.3 behaviour.

Is there any way to start an operation from a form displayed in the "modal" window ?

pbrad

You can place custom buttons on the form in an html cell that call any process. These buttons will always show up.

Pete

bartthefish

While I agree with Pete that custom buttons always appear regardless of whether the form is opened in a modal view or normal view, I've tried using custom buttons on modal forms and the processes do not seem to execute properly.

The process executed from the custom button in my case never starts due to the fact that the process that opened the modal form seems to prevent this.

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong in my configuration of the custom button, but this is a big restriction as far as our applications go, when compared to V3.

pixerp

I've also tried to implement a process Button. But, as barthefish says, it doesn't work.

In fact, the "modal" window DOESN'T ALLOW anything but filling in the form.

From Support post above, Starting A Process from the form is disabled by design, to preserve system integrity !!

Well, after giving it some 2nd thoughts, I just don't understand why I can use the default implementation to EDIT a referenced object (Table of items presentation) without restrictions (because it opens in Main panel) and not have a process rule to EDIT an object in the same way.

I hope this process behaviour is going to be improved in a near future 🙂

pixerp

Support,

could you please confirm that this problem is on your priority list ?

(or should I open a new post in the Problem forum ?)

Thanks

aware_support

No, this is not on our list unless you convince us that there is a problem here.

If you want to start a process from a form use the VIEW action, not EDIT action. The only difference between the VIEW action and the EDIT action is that the former does not expect a reply from the user and so the form is displayed in the main area, whereas the EDIT action does expect a reply from the user and is displayed in the pop-up window (by Aware IM philosophy if a reply from the user is expected for some operation, the user cannot start another process before providing a reply to the current one).

pixerp

OK, from a form starting a process with VIEW instead of EDIT displays in the main panel with no restrictions.

The real problem is when you start a process from the Menu.

For example, when ringing, my phoneset creates a ReceivedCall instance (using xmlhttprequest) in my application.

So the menu shows option : Answer Phonecall

The process has following (main) rules:

. use URL_CONTENTS to pick-up the call (if headset=yes)
. PICK FROM ReceivedCall where...
. VIEW/EDIT ReceivedCall (here, I need to start a process to lookup to an external DB and/or display a different form if the callerid is unknown)
....

Both PICK FROM and VIEW action are displayed in a modal window. So it doesn't help. Moreover, as there are additional rules updating ReceivedCall when completed, I doubt being able to use VIEW instead of EDIT.

I had no problem with the above in V3. From the posts above, I'm not the only one concerned.

aware_support

Not sure I understand. In your example PICK FROM will display in the pop-up window, but the subsequent VIEW action should display in the main area without restrictions and you should be able to start a new process from there.

Are you saying that the VIEW action does not display in the main area? If so, are there any actions after the VIEW action in the process (there shouldn't be any)?

pixerp

Hi Support,

After some offline post with Tom, here is the problem illustrated.

When the Received Call Form is displayed, the user need to be able to:

. select existing references (Address or Contact) or create them
. return to the Received Call

After 3 days of intense trying, I couldn't find a reasonable solution.

The closest: 2 buttons on Received call Form: Select & Add new.

Select is OK as Pick from 'query' displays in a modal window.

"Add New Contact" has following process rules:

. DISPLAY QUESTION 'Is the new contact a person ?'
. "if Yes": ENTER NEW PERSON
. "if Yes": CREATE CONTACT WITH ... ELSE IF "NO" CREATE CONTACT WITH ...(attributes initialization are different)
. "if YES": VIEW CONTACT USING Contactperson Else VIEW CONTACT USING Contactfunction

Now, Recceived call Form has obviously gone for good !

My html button definition is:

<button type="button" onclick="AwareApp.startProcessFromForm('SelectRecdCallContact', 'main', this, true);">Select</button> <button type="button" onclick="AwareApp.startProcessFromForm('CreateContactInRecdCall', 'main', this, true);" >Add new</button>

tford

Ernest,

Instead of a PICK FROM to choose your Received Call, couldn't you DISPLAY the query so that it will go full screen?

Each Received Call in the query list would then have operations beside each entry to VIEW that particular line. This VIEW would also be full screen.

pixerp

Thanks Tom.

From the standard Menu

Using DISPLAY 'Myquery' as the last rule in my AnswerCall process will either be displayed in the Main frame or in a Main_NewTab if "Open new tab" is checked in Menu, Item properties.

Operation (AnswerCall2) placed next to each items with VIEW action as the last process rule will replace the query in that frame.

The Form will have a CLOSE button if displayed in Main_NewTab.

In this way, I can do whatever is required with Operations and HTML links.

From a Link in HTML page

I'm trying to achieve the same as 1. above with an HTML page imported into the Left frame (Custom Menu ?).

The description of what happens is made in a new post :

tford

Ernest,

Are you saying in #1 that this forum post is solved now?

pixerp

Yes, I would say so.

Thanks for your help.
Ernest