xpages embedded view or view panel

Question

I know it is a very simple question , but I'm trying to see the difference between a view panel ( that I drag from the Container Controls ) and an embedded view.

How can I add an embedded view on my xpages?

Or the 2 items are one and the same.

The reason why I'm asking this question: I have a view panel on my xpage ( I thought it is like an embedded view in clasic lotus notes programming ) where I have listing some docs. The first column is categorized based on the UNID document.

I noticed if I compose again another document, this view contains all the previous docs., and all the UNID categorized. The view panel isn't empty.

In lotus notes programming:

If I have a main form and a computed text field with @Text(@DocumentUniqueId) and some button for composing another form ( of course, when clicking the button I saved the main form to obtain the UNID ), and this form has the same text field name as the previous - I'm passing the UNID to this second form. If the main form contains an embedded view listing all documents saved from the second form I will use the first column categorized and hidden with the name of the field from the second form ( which will contain the UNID ). If I save and close the 1st main, and then I'll compose another main form, the embedded view is not listing the previous documents already saved.

Well, this view is already created.

I did drag and drop this view in myxpage. I have a button inside myxpage that shows a dialog. Here a datasource is declared, the dialog containing some fields. In the main xpage ( where is defined another datasource ) there is a computed field which takes the UNID of the document. Before I click the dialog I save the first datasource, to pass the value UNID to other field inside the dialog.

I save the datasource from the dialog & close the dialog, and then the view panel ( which is the view from the lotus notes classic presented above ) lists the doc. If I close the main xpage ( save it if is a new one ) and then open another main document, the view isn't empty, it contains the previous document lists. ( I tried also to hide it, if the xspDoc is new. But when I try adding other docs. from the dialog, the view panel lists also the previous documents from the previous doc., even if the UNIDs are distinct )

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

To explain this best, it's good to consider what a view and an embedded view in Notes Client is. A view determines the look and feel, like a View Panel and by default will show all documents found by the selection criteria. So in this case the documents available correspond to a dominoView datasource bound to the underlying view with no additional criteria defined.

An embedded view still uses the view to determine the look and feel, but will not display the first column (that's effectively a property of the embedded view "control" in Notes Client). In the View Panel you choose which columns display, so you would need to code that yourself on the View Panel, where you choose which columns to display. The embedded view also has a property to define the single category. But the View Panel and other repeating containers (like Data Table and repeat control) don't restrict the data available, that's done by the datasource - a dominoView or e.g. a ViewEntryCollection for anything other than the View Panel. So in that you set the filter.

However, a new document does not have a UNID, so it cannot restrict what is displayed. Instead, I think a good approach is to set the visibility so the View Panel is only displayed if it's not a new document. You can use loaded, if you fully reload the page after save, or else rendered.

Answer 2

First off, this is not a stupid question.

I am assuming you are using a self implemented parent response system and have a view sorted by the parent UNID. Under the data source of the view panel, find the the "filter by category name" option. there compute the UNID value, or category value you are searching for.

Steps:

1. insure that the background view is categorized (ascending order is best to insure that this works, though I doubt it is needed)
2. drag (my favourite is the dynamicViewPanel) a view control onto the xpage.
3. Under Properties/Data there is a place to calculate the value of the category to show. If you want an exact match, check the exact match check box.

If you mistype the category value or the value is not there, then no documents will be shown.
if you put in an empty value all documents are shown (at least in the tests that I can remember)
if documents are returned, the categorized column is automatically hidden.

EDIT

If you are reading the value from a field, you can use the code:

xspDoc.getItemValueString("fld");

If you are searching based on the UNID, again, hide the viewPanel if the document is new. If the value is not yet set, also hide the panel.

If you have two custom controls, even if a custom control is embedded in the second, you cannot easily have one custom control access the values of the datasource in another. I am sure there are ways to trick this into working, but in this case, use a viewScope variable to access the values and possibly an onLoad, onChange or onSave event to update the viewScope variable. Make sure to verify that the result is not null or empty by either printing it out to the server log or another field.

Final Edit after question edit/expansion

These are the steps that I would take to do what you described.

1. You have your parent document XPage. Insert all fields for this Xpage.
2. Drag a dynamicViewPanel onto the XPage. If parentDoc is New, then hide.(this could be a custom control in theory, but if you are having trouble, try it without for the sake of trouble shooting.
3. Set dynamicViewPanel datasource to ignoreReqeustParams.
4. Calculate the datasource and setting the "Filter by category name" filter. When computing this, for the sake of ease and troubleshooting, print this value out to the server, or other logging mechanism. You can delete it later.
5. Verify that the correct UNID/Value is being inserted into the document you create in the dialog.
6. If you are using a scoped variable to hold the filter value, be sure you are using viewScope and not appliationScope or sessionScope.
7. if you are using a custom control and standard parameters (not scopedVars), verify that the compositeData variable is being updated with a log or server print.
8. Consider setting Dialog Properties/AllProperties/basics/refreshOnShow to true
9. Play with the partial refresh option for the dialogOpen action, test a full vs partial refresh.
10. Remember to set the ignoreRequestParams for the document you are creating in the dialog to true
11. Consider making the new document data source created in the Dialog to request scope.
12. And of course consider and test all datasources being defined on the XPage on not some here, some there.
13. Verify that you are taking the value of the UNID from the main document and not the new dialog document by mistake!

Those are all of the tips I can think of right now, pretty much in the order I'd try them in. If that does not help, then I suspect there is a piece of this puzzle that you are not including in the question. Remember, try to keep things as simple as you can. You can over think things, make things harder than they need be.