The powerful feature known as the Dynamic Web Form can make the element form responsive to the inputs from the user. This is highly extensible and customizable and is designed based on a Javascript API provided by Focal Point.
You can implement your own custom JavaScript file by providing the implementations of the call back methods specified in this API. The following capabilities can be realized using this feature:
▪ Dynamically change the attribute modes: An attribute can be in any of the following modes: hidden, read-only, writable and mandatory. Users can programmatically set the mode of a dependent attribute based on the value of a source attribute. For example, when the featureType attribute is software, only the attributes related to software should be visible. If the featureType attribute is hardware, only the attributes related to hardware should be visible.
▪ Dynamically filter the list of items of available for an enumerated attribute: Based on the value of a source attribute, dynamically change the list of items available for enumeration attributes like choice, multichoice,link and linklist. For example, when the attribute country is X, the attribute city should only show the corresponding cities. When the attribute country is Y, the attribute city should only show the corresponding cities.
▪ Perform client side validation of user inputs on the fly: There are situations where one would want the user inputs to be validated before getting saved into the database. Again these validations can be complex and dependent on the value of a source attribute(s). For example, the validation of an attribute representing the postal code. Format of the postal codes could be different in different countries.
▪ Perform client side calculation and set default values to attributes: There are situations when a change in an attribute value should trigger a series of calculations or change the value of another attribute. For example, when the status of the Feature element is changed to "Reject" all approval attributes need to be reset.
Dynamic Web Form capability needs to be enabled at the module level configuration as shown below:
1 Enable the capability by selecting the check box Enable Dynamic Web Form.
2 Upload the JavaScript Module Policy file by choosing the Browse button.
3 Provide the Module Policy ID, which is same as the ID provided in the Javascript file.
4 You can download a sample project containing the Dynamic Web Form implementation from the same page. The project contains a module template file (Features.fpz) that can be imported into a Focal Point installation.
This project also contains a few JavaScript files used to implement the Dynamic Web Form capability. The file FeatureModulePolicy is the one which defines the dynamic behavior for this particular module. Other JavaScript files are supporting files and need not be changed.
