Migrating From FrontPage to WebFOCUS 5’s Resource Layout Painter

By Brian Carter

In the past, WebFOCUS has recommended the use of Microsoft FrontPage for creating interactive HTML "launch" pages. The WebFOCUS development environment made use of a practical integration between Developer Studio, previously known as WebFOCUS Desktop, and Microsoft FrontPage.

A developer licensed for use of FrontPage 2000 or 2002 could install Developer Studio with the FrontPage integration option and take advantage of a built-in communication layer between the two products. This offered a graphical way of creating the HTML files needed to develop a WebFOCUS application.

To better understand the purpose of this article, one must understand the role an HTML launch page plays in a WebFOCUS application. A launch page is an HTML file that contains graphics, links to other HTML pages, and more importantly, links that run WebFOCUS reports. In addition to simply running a report, launch pages may also contain forms used in parameterized reporting.

A report containing one or more parameters requires a method of gathering the selection criteria and passing it to the Reporting Server. The parameter values passed to the Reporting Server are used to filter the data and provide the exact results specified by the user. The HTML form is the key element in a parameterized reporting scenario.

WebFOCUS has typically relied on the Microsoft FrontPage integration feature provided in Developer Studio to provide a graphical method of creating HTML launch pages. This feature enabled developers to call FrontPage within Developer Studio and use special WebFOCUS form controls added to the FrontPage menu items. A developer could easily generate a WebFOCUS form that was associated to a procedure created with the Report Painter. The form contained all of the necessary CGI and server calls and allowed the developer to assign form controls to parameters in the report.

This scenario was a great option for customers that used FrontPage as an HTML generation tool, but there are a number of limitations as well, which we will cover later.

In release 4.3.6, Developer Studio introduced the Resource Layout Painter, which provided a graphical method of "laying out" multiple reports, graphs, and other HTML elements in a single HTML file. In addition, a mechanism was provided to handle parameterized reporting. Through the Publish utility, a developer would automatically receive a series of drop-down list controls for each parameter in the report. This came to be the foundation for an innovative and automated process of creating parameterized reports and launch pages within Developer Studio.

In Developer Studio Release 5, the Resource Layout Painter has evolved into a full-service environment for creating HTML launch pages. The Layout Painter has tightened the integration between the Report Painter and other tools used to create report procedures and other report components.

The area of parameterized reporting was enhanced tremendously in the Layout Painter by adding a variety of "must have" features related to form creation and parameter "binding." Parameter binding simply refers to associating a parameter to an HTML object.

Developers creating or importing reports with parameters will still automatically receive form controls for each parameter, but now they may customize the type of control and the behavior with a few clicks. Multiple dynamic form controls with single or multi-select capabilities make the creation of data-driven forms a snap. Users may now easily add hyperlinks, push buttons, and IFRAMEs, to the Layout Painter, allowing reports and parameters to be associated to nearly any HTML object.

With the release of the new and improved Resource Layout Painter, we recommend that users of the FrontPage integration feature begin to make the transition to the Layout Painter. Information Builders will begin to phase the FrontPage integration feature out of Developer Studio in future releases.

While FrontPage remains a leading solution for HTML generation, it has become costly for Information Builders to maintain the integration of the two products. Clearly, as new releases of FrontPage become available, it gets very labor-intensive to develop new integration while maintaining existing code so customers are free to upgrade or to continue using their existing versions of FrontPage.

Using Layout Painter will eliminate other issues as well. The Layout Painter is an inclusive component of Developer Studio and does not require any third-party tools or extra licensing requirements. That’s good news for customers not licensed for Microsoft FrontPage and those who prefer to use other HTML authoring tools.

In addition, concentrating development efforts on a single parameterized reporting solution such as the Layout Painter allows for a more rapid and reliable development environment for the customer. Many enhancements are already underway that will make your development effort easier than ever.

Stay tuned and start using the Resource Layout Painter. See you in the next issue of the newsletter.