Back Forward Harness and Section forms - Adding a dynamic container

 About Harnesses

A section containing a dynamic container supports the runtime presentation of cases and worklists in composite portals.

You can use dynamic containers to present dynamic content in:

As a best practice, upgrade deprecated Work Area controls to Dynamic Containers. Dynamic containers provide similar functionality but are easier to configure, offer greater flexibility, and provide better performance. You can use the Work Area auto-upgrade tool to automatically convert Work Areas to dynamic containers. See Upgrading Work Area controls to dynamic containers on the PDN.

To prevent performance issues and unexpected runtime behavior, the system does not allow you to directly nest, within the same section or harness, a dynamic container inside another dynamic container. Do not attempt a nesting configuration by including a section containing a dynamic container inside another dynamic container.

Presenting dynamic content in a single document

You can use a dynamic container to present the dynamic contents of sections or harnesses in a single document. This means that only one document is open at a time. When a user opens another document, it replaces the original document in the dynamic container.

When building an application for mobile or offline use, dynamic content should be displayed in single document mode. When a Dynamic Container is set to single document mode, iframes are disabled by default. In effect, Single Document Mode is the iframe-free implementation of a Dynamic Container. Nesting iframes for the for dynamic content in a mobile or offline application may cause issues with speed, responsiveness, and interaction on the mobile devices and should be removed by displaying the content in single document mode.

For example, a worklist gadget can be configured with dynamic containers so that when a user selects an item on the list, the system replaces the current work form on the portal with the selected one.

  1. From the Design tab, clickLayout group and select Dynamic ContainerDynamic Container.
  2. Drag it onto the form and release it. The Dynamic Container settings dialog appears.
  3. Specify Single Document as the Mode, complete the Dynamic Container settings, and click OK.

Presenting dynamic content in multiple documents

You can use a dynamic container to present the dynamic contents of sections or harnesses in multiple documents. In this mode, several documents may be open simultaneously. Users can navigate among the open documents using tabs or a list of recent items. You can display up to 16 documents.

Multiple documents with recent list navigation

  1. From the Design tab, clickLayout group and select Dynamic ContainerDynamic Container.
  2. Drag it onto the form and release it. The Dynamic Container settings dialog appears.
  3. Specify Multi Document as the Mode, complete the Dynamic Container settings, and click OK.

    As a best practice, ensure that the number you specify as the Maximum Documents for the dynamic container is the same number you specify in the Items per Page field on the recent item grid.

See Displaying a list of recent items in your application on the PDN.

Multiple documents with tab navigation

Using a dynamic container, you can present multiple documents in a tab group, comprising layouts, sections, or harnesses.

To add a dynamic container to a tab group, create the Tab layout and then add the dynamic container:

  1. Click Layout group and selectLayout.
  2. Drag and drop it onto the form.
  3. From the Layout group, select Dynamic ContainerDynamic Container.
  4. Drag the dynamic container into the tab group and place it on the tab border. Release the mouse pointer. The new tab ( labeled << Dynamic >> ) appears to the right. The dynamic tab contains no content; the text Dynamic Content appears on the background. In a group of tabs, the dynamic container is always the last tab on the right.

  5. Select the << Dynamic >> tab and click to display the properties panel.

  6. In the Max tabs control, select the maximum number of tabs the user can open, in addition to the ones in the tab group. The highest number is 16.

  7. Enter the dynamic content in the tab. You can leave it blank if you instead plan to use the group for sections or harnesses.
    To add a section or a harness to the tab group: Drag a section or harness from the Application Explorer and place it on the border of the layout tab. Alternatively, you can drag a Section from the Layout group and drop it onto the tab.
  8. In the tab group header, click Magnifying glassto open the Tab Group properties panel and complete the following:
    Style format

    Select the format you want to apply to the tabs in the group. To configure the format's appearance, access the Components tab in the Skin and then select Tab in the Layouts area.

    • Standard — Default format applied to all tab groups.
    • Sub — Format suitable for sub-tabs.
    • Other — Select to specify a custom style format in the field that displays. You can create custom style formats in the skin.
    Tab position

    Select the placement of the tabs at runtime:

    • Top
    • Bottom
    • Left
    • Right

    If you select Left or Right, specify the horizontal or vertical orientation of the tabs in the Tab Orientation field.

    Tab orientationIf you selected a left or right Tab Position, select to display tabs horizontally or vertically. Horizontal is the default. If you select vertical orientation, the tab title is rotated based on the tab position, left or right.

Presenting dynamic content in a layout

You can use a dynamic container to present the dynamic contents of sections or harnesses in a dynamic layout or column layout. Dynamic containers can be dragged and dropped from one layout to another layout. You cannot copy and paste dynamic containers into a smart layout.

  1. From the Design tab, clickLayout group and select Dynamic ContainerDynamic Container.
  2. Drag it onto the layout and release it. The Dynamic Container settings dialog appears.
  3. Specify Dynamic Layout as the Mode, complete the Dynamic Container settings, and click OK.

Dynamic Container settings

Field

Description
Default View

Select the type of rule you want to include: Section or Harness.
Page context

Select or confirm the page context:

  • Use current page context— uses the class (Applies To key part) of the current section
  • Use data page— in the field that displays, press the down arrow and select the data page. If the data page accepts parameters, then the parameters display here, along with a field into which you can enter the values that you want to pass to the parameters.
  • Use clipboard page— specify the clipboard page in the field that displays. Press the down arrow and select to reference:
    • a property on the primary page: select Primary. Primary, followed by a dot, displays in the field. Press the down arrow to select the property name that you want to use as the page context for the section.
    • a parameter on the parameter page: select Param. Param, followed by a dot, displays in the field. Press the down arrow to select the parameters you want to specify as the page context for the section.
  • Use page defined by property— specify the property that defines the page that you want to use.
Purpose Select the Purpose key part of a section or harness.
Mode  
Single Document

Select to present the dynamic contents of sections or harnesses in a single document. Only one document is open at a time. When a user opens another document, the original document is replaced.

In single document mode, when the user navigates to another document, any Clipboard pages not needed are removed. All pages are removed from the clipboard except:

  • All requestor-level declare pages
  • pxThread
  • AccessGroup
  • Application
  • pyPortal
  • pyPortalHarness
  • pyDisplayHarness
Multi Document Select to present dynamic content in multiple documents. In this mode, several documents may be open simultaneously. Users can navigate among the open documents using tabs or a list of recent items.
Maximum Documents

Specify the number of documents for Multi Document dynamic containers. See Adding a dynamic container to a tab group.

As a best practice, ensure that the number you specify as the Maximum Documents for the dynamic container is the same number you specify in the Items per Page field on the recent item grid.

Use Legacy iFrame mode

Select the Use Legacy iFrame mode check box to use iframes. This is not recommended. This option is disabled by default on newly-created dynamic containers. Existing dynamic containers will have this option selected and will continue to run with iframes unless this check box is cleared.

Size to Content

Select the Size to Content check box to allow the dynamic container to resize based on width and height of the content of the container. If not enabled, the dynamic container resizes based on the width and height of the parent frame or screen layout.

This option is enabled by default on newly-created dynamic containers. Existing dynamic containers can be updated by selecting the Size to Content check box.

Complete the layout, section, and container tab panels

Select the tabs and click to display their respective properties panels.

To delete a single tab, select it and then click Delete (Delete). To delete an entire tab layout, select the layout and then click the Delete Row button (delete row), not the Delete Cell button.

The standard Case Manager and Case Worker portals provide working examples of tabbed dynamic containers.

Notes:

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