Is there a way to use a javascript object as a custom control property?

Question

I'm currently building a custom control to be used as an application's view navigator (classic OneUI style). First of all: this is a 8.5.3 based project, and unfortunately there's no way to use Extlib stuff or other extensions / plug-ins. So we have to build all the tricky stuff ourselves using only what came "out-of-the-box" with 8.5.3.

I'd llike to build my navigator using a repeat control containing <xp:link> controls. Datasource could be an array of javascript objects where each single object would look like this:

var navEntry = {"entryLabel" : "label-of-link", 
      "entryTarget" : "target-url-of-link",
      "entryStyle" : "style-to-emphasize-selected-link"}

Each array element then would describe a single navigator entry. Since the navigator will be used in all possible "DominoView" Xpages it yould make sense to build the array of JS objects at the Xpage level and then pass that info into the custom control.

I'm aware that there are multiple ways to do this, and one could be "Custom Control Properties". If there was a way to pass my JS object array.

(Hope I could make clear what I'm trying to do here...)

Answer 1

That object looks like a HashMap to me really. You should be able to pass that in to a custom control via custom property if you use the type java.util.HashMap I'd think. You'll need to type it in I'm sure. I've passed custom objects in by using java.lang.Object.

Answer 2

The custom control will get loaded during the Page Load event, and usually properties have to be available at that point. If they're loaded during the Render Response phase, that's too late. So your SSJS object will need to be Compute on Page Load.

To use contents of a repeat control, you would need to set repeatControls=true, otherwise the repeat is only built during render response. Until then it's just a single set of controls with no data in them. However, Im pretty sure repeatControls="true" means you only get the number of rows you define. You can't change it via a pager.

Answer 3

You can manually define the type of the custom property. For a standard SSJS Object you use "com.ibm.jscript.std.ObjectObject", for a SSJS Array you use "com.ibm.jscript.std.ArrayObject" etc. As editor for the custom property, I set the string editor ("String value").