Custom URL Configuration

TACTIC’s Custom Layout Editor provides users with the ability to completely customize the end user inteface. The HTML, Python, Styles, and Behaviours tabs offer the flexibility to dictate the appearance, functionality and actions of generated views. However, there are times where the appearance, functionality and actions need to be dynamic, changing depending on different events or conditions.

Custom URL Configuration encompasses these possibilities by offering the availability of variable options. Views can be modified by options that are set statically by the user and change dynamically with the system. These options can be inserted into code developed to define a view to perform a desired behaviour.

The Custom URL can be configured through Project Essentials under Custom URL. Entries can be added into the table with a specified URL path, pointing to a Custom Layout view to be modified, for example, and the associated HTML code under the Widget column to define the view.

A list of options are available to the user to set within the HTML that defines a view from the Widget column. These options and associated descriptions and values are provided below. The first three options refer to the visibility and usability of the respective user interface element (sidebar, index and admin) when the Custom Layout component is drawn. The palette option establishes the overall color of these respective user interface elements.

Option	Description	Values
sidebar	Determines whether the sidebar, as seen in the administrative layer, is available in the view.	true/false
index	Determines whether the element will be displayed with the theming and configuration set up from the index URL. If set to "true", it will only work if there is an entry with a URL as "/index" in the Custom URL table.	true/false
admin	Determines whether the element will be displayed with the theming and configuration of the administrative layer.	true/false
palette	Determines the overall color theme of all of the tables and associated menus in the view.	aqua/aviator/bon noche/bright/dark/ silver/origami

Two examples are shown to demonstrate how to statically set these options to configure a URL, as well as how to specify a view as the home or landing page of a TACTIC project.

Example 1: HTML Element Options

The example below is taking a specific view for a job established by the URL /job/JOB002 and setting the admin, sidebar and palette options inline with the definition of the element tag. Notice that the URL defined is only a portion of a full URL. The full URL would follow a format of http://<IP>/tactic/jobs/job/JOB002. Only the latter portion of the URL is required.

URL Column

/job/JOB002

Widget Column

<?xml version="1.0"?> <element admin='true' sidebar='false'
palette='bright'> <display class='tactic.ui.panel.CustomLayoutWdg'>
<search_type>my_project/my_sType</search_type> <view>my_view</view>
</display> </element>

Example 2: Setting Home Page through URL

The user can set a custom view created in the Custom Layout Editor as the home or landing page when the user and all other users sign in. The HTML set in the Widget column can point to a specific view in the Custom Layout Editor to set as the home page. In this case, the display class would need to be defined as a Custom Layout Widget to accommodate for the use of a Custom Layout view.

Notice how the URL is set as "/index", which differs from the Custom Layout view in the HTML. The URL must be set as "/index" in order to have this view set as the home page.

URL Column

/index

Widget Column

<element name='index'> <display class='tactic.ui.panel.CustomLayoutWdg'>
<view>custom_layout_folder/my_custom_view</view> </display> </element>

Dynamically Setting Options

The following examples will demonstrate how to dynamically set options. The first example will demonstrate how to configure multiple views using a dynamic URL following from Example 1 in the Statically Setting Options section. The second example will follow from the second example under the Statically Setting Options section. The Custom Layout view set as the home page will actually utilize mako with HTML in order to set the value of a variable to be used in the HTML. This variable is used to set the display class of the element.

Example 1: Configuring Multiple Views through a Dynamic URL

In Example 1 from the Statically Setting Options section, the view being modified was for a specific job. In this example, you can see that the same modifications can be applied to the views for all jobs. The \{…​} syntax allows for a variable value. In this case, the "code" variable can change. The job "code" defines the jobs in the project through an alphanumeric sequence, such as "JOB002". This variable syntax allows the URL to keep changing for all the jobs present in the project. This means that different jobs can appear in the same view as it will have the same HTML definition.

Notice how the display class is changed to a Table Layout as opposed to a Custom Layout Widget. This is just to demonstrate the different display classes available to the user as well.

URL Column

/job/\{code}

Widget Column

<?xml version="1.0"?> <element admin='true' sidebar='false'
palette='bright'> <display class='tactic.ui.panel.TableLayoutWdg'>
<search_type>my_project/my_sType</search_type> <view>my_view</view>
</display> </element>

Example 2: Custom Layout Editor - Setting Element Display Class in HTML with Changing Mako Variable Value

The focus on this example will be the utilization of Mako and HTML in the Custom Layout Editor for the view defined in Example 1 of the Statically Setting Options section. The code from Example 1 of the Statically Setting Options section is shown again here for reference.

The Mako code is set up to determine whether a search key is existent in TACTIC. What this means is TACTIC is aware if an entry with a specific ID already exists in the sType table. This code is utilizing that ability and checking whether that entry does already exist. The entry’s existence determines what the display_widget variable will be set to.

In the HTML for the "last_name" element, the display class is variable as indicative of the syntax "$\{…​}", which wraps the variable display_widget. Based on the existence of the search key, the display class of the "last_name" element will be either a text input widget or a lookahead text input widget.

URL Column

/index

Widget Column

<element name='index'> <display class='tactic.ui.panel.CustomLayoutWdg'>
<view>custom_layout_folder/my_custom_view</view> </display> </element>

HTML Tab in Custom Layout Editor for custom_layout_folder/my_custom_view View

<div>
    <div>
    <%
        sType2_key = kwargs.get("search_key") or ""
        if sType2_key:
            display_widget = "tactic.ui.input.TextInputWdg"
        else:
            display_widget = "tactic.ui.input.LookAheadTextInputWdg"
    %>
    </div>
<table>
  <tr>
     <td>Last Name</td>
     <td class="spt_element">
       <element name="last_name">
         <display class="$\{display_widget}">
         <search_type>my_project/my_sType</search_type>
         <column>my_view2</column>
         <search_key>$\{sType2_key}</search_key>
         <filter_search_type>my_project/my_sType</filter_search_type>
         <value_column>id</value_column>
         <current_value_column>id</current_value_column>
         </display>
       </element>
     </td>
    </tr>
</div>