There is very little documentation about the Page Object, however it is very simple to use...
> Add it to a page to give you access to the 'thisPage' object (which is an alias for the name of this page).
- And ensures each form has a different name, for xref purposes.
> Can store 'persistant' variables
- variables that are set by server code can be extracted via client code, and vica-versa.
- page variables exist only while the user uses this page (navigate to another page, and they disappear) - i.e. hidden form values
- session variables exist for the remainder of the users session. They are implemented as session varlues - but they are prefixed with the page name to (try-to) avoid name duplication.
- Set a reference from one page to another, via page object, and all 'session' variables become available (and included in drop-down member/property list)
- access via thisPage.setXxxx or .getXxxx methods.
- Why have these? They save the bother of generating hidden form fields, and client code to read/write to them, and/or creating unique named session values and writing these names down so you do not forget them later. However, you can do this stuff manually.
> Lets you refer to function/subroutines either as
- navigate functions - loads a page and runs that function. Can be very useful for grid-row 'delete' function - each grid row has a 'delete' link, that causes the delete 'navigate' function to be called, passing the required recordset key values as parameters.
- execute functions - uses Java applet to asynchronously load page, run a function, return the function value. This is quite an excellent feature for interactive client-side code - you can do server-side validation without the usual client round trip (i.e. a separate hidden HTTP session is created to call function, send parameters and return results). However, it does require Java on the client. [ It can be emulated using Layers (netscape) or in-line frames (IE) - these can load up a web page with query string parameters, and scrape out the results from the returned html, all in an invisible layer. You would need to define a syntax for result values and a load of javascript to handle it all! ]
Hope this helps. If it does, then please do add it to the FAQ area.
(Content Management)
