Extending the application

There are several types of extensibility that you can use to extend the look and feel, database, or browser portal of your application.

This topic provides an overview, high-level concepts, and technical architectural diagrams of the application.

• Look and feel extensibility

  The application provides a Presentation Framework toolkit that enables you to change the way information is rendered or displayed without changing the way it functions.

• Transactional Extensibility

  provides the Service Definition Framework, which is an infrastructure that automates the conversion and transportation of data between and third-party applications, and then converts that data into formats readable by each system. The Service Definition Framework also handles logging and exceptions. It enables you to create custom transactions that extend the functionality of the application.

• Database Extensibility

  In addition to customizing the user interface and transactions, you can extend the database to store additional attributes specific for your business.

• Printed Documents Extensibility

  You can customize printed documents. For example, you can extend the default length of bar codes.

  You can use JasperReports for generating printed reports in the application. Additionally, you can also generate reports as a PDF, RTF or any other Jasper Print object in the application. JasperReports is an open source Java™ reporting tool, which you download and install separately. The JasperReports installation guidelines are provided in the INSTALL_DIR/xapidocs/code_examples/jasperreports/alert_report_readme.html file. A sample JasperReport called sampleAlertReport.pdf is also available in the same directory.

  A Jasper print component is defined in the Service Definition Framework which can be used to automatically print a document based on an event. It is a standard XML-based component that accepts XML as input and provides an output XML.

• Browser Portal Extensibility

  You can export views into the application database that lists a user's frequently used search criteria.