LINK element

The LINK element specifies the page to go to after an action phase. Alternatively, a LINK element can specify any external web page or certain resource. Links can contain CONNECT elements to map values to parameters to be added to the link.

Attributes

The LINK element has the following attributes. Note that the PAGE_ID, PAGE_ID_REF, URL, URI, and URI_REF attributes are mutually exclusive as well as the pair of attributes URI_SOURCE_NAME and URI_SOURCE_PROPERTY.

Please note that attributes that have the ability to link to external web pages or resources (i.e mailto: links) will have their link back functionality stripped away. This link back functionality keeps a link to the previous page. An example of where this is needed is with cancel buttons where if they are used, the page will link back to the previous page. In order to keep this, the link will have to be to an internal Curam page. In order to mark a link as being a link to an internal Curam page, the keyword 'curam:' needs to be added before the link text.

Table 1. Attributes of the LINK Element

Attribute Name

Required

Default

Description

PAGE_ID

No

  

The unique identifier of the page to be opened. This is the value of the PAGE_ID attribute of the PAGE element in the required UIM page document.

If this attribute is set to the PAGE_ID of the current page, the page will be re-opened with all the input fields reset to their default state.

If the link is on an action control with a TYPE set to SUBMIT and this attribute is set to the value THIS, the link will return to the current page after the action phase and the input fields will not be reset to their default state. This is useful for search pages where the search criteria need to be preserved.

PAGE_ID_REF

No

  

A PAGE_ID can alternatively be specified by reference to an entry in the CuramLinks.properties file. This allows many links to refer to the same target page yet all can be updated by changing the entry in the CuramLinks.properties file.

URL

No

  

It is recommended to use the new URI attribute which is described below. The URL attribute is maintained for backward compatibility.

URI

No

  

Rather than link to another page in the application, the URI attribute allows the creation of a link to any URI whatsoever. This can be used to link to pages or other resources completely outside of the application. Parameters must be supplied by CONNECT elements within the LINK to ensure correct encoding.

URI_REF

No

  

A URI (or URL) can alternatively be specified by reference to an entry in the CuramLinks.properties file. This allows many links to refer to the same target yet all can be updated by changing the entry in the CuramLinks.properties file. The file can be placed in any component in the application.

URI_SOURCE_NAME

No

  

The name of the SERVER_INTERFACE instance to use as the source of the URI. This attribute is paired with URI_SOURCE_PROPERTY. Note that a URI can only be sourced from a server interface. This attribute cannot be used to specify page parameters or properties files as a source for the URI. The server interface reference must be called during the display-phase and the parent ACTION_CONTROL must be of type ACTION when this property is used.

URI_SOURCE_PROPERTY

No

  

The name of the property to use as the source of the URI.

OPEN_NEW

No

false

When set to true, this flag indicates that the linked page should be opened in a new window. When set to false (the default) the linked page will be opened in the current window. This setting is only supported for links to external sites.

SAVE_LINK

No

true

This attribute indicates that the page containing the link should be returned to if an action control on the target page is configured to return to the previous page. An action control without a LINK child element will return the user to the previous page. If there is a sequence of pages and any one of them needs to go back to a starting page, then each page in the sequence should set this attribute to false so that subsequent pages do not return to their immediate previous page in the chain.

SET_HIERARCHY_RETURN_PAGE

No

false

This attribute is no longer used but has been retained in the UIM schema to avoid upgrade impact.

USE_HIERARCHY_RETURN_PAGE

No

 false This attribute is no longer used but has been retained in the UIM schema to avoid upgrade impact.

HOME_PAGE

No

   If this attribute is set to true, the link will take a user directly to their home page. During development the home page can be configured by setting the application code field of the Cúram users table. This value of this field corresponds to an entry on the APPLICATION_CODE code-table. At runtime, the Cúram Administration application allows the home page to be set when creating or editing a user.

Note, that in the development environment Java EE security is not enabled. Therefore, since a user name is not available the home page link cannot be displayed.

OPEN_MODAL

No

 "false" If this attribute is set to true, the link will open the referenced page in a new window. The new window is modal, meaning that while it is open the parent window cannot be accessed. When a user navigates from the original page in the modal dialog, either by submitting a form or clicking a link, the modal dialog is closed, and the parent page that spawned it is sent to the new location.

DISMISS_MODAL

No

 "true" If this attribute is set to false, the link will open the referenced page in the same pop-up window, modal or normal depending on what the browser supports.

WINDOW_OPTIONS

No

 "width=800, height=450" The size of each modal dialog is configurable using this parameter. The value of the attribute is a comma separated list of name value pairs. The currently supported options are width and height, both of which take an integer value, which is translated directly to a pixel value. Any other parameters will cause an exception to be thrown. This attribute should only be set when OPEN_MODAL is set to true on the same LINK tag.

Child Elements

The LINK element can contain the following child elements:

Table 2. Child Elements of the LINK Element

Element Name

Cardinality / Description

CONNECT

0..n. Connections on a link define the parameters to be exported to the page targeted by the link. The CONNECT should contain both a SOURCE and a TARGET element and the TARGET element should have the NAME attribute set to PAGE and the PROPERTY attribute set to the name of the page parameter. Any type of SOURCE element can be used except the TEXT. Also, in the scenario where the LINK is inside an ACTION_CONTROL with TYPE = SUBMIT, the SOURCE must have an ACTION phase bean, a page parameter or a CONSTANT. The reason being the URL is generated in the action class and the DISPLAY bean is not accessible at the stage.

CONDITION

0..1. Affects whether or not the link is displayed.