HTML Tools Custimization Tips

By Laura Drezek

With the HTML Report and Graph Assistant tools acting as the default ad hoc tools in WebFOCUS and Developer Studio’s Reporting Objects Component, we get many requests from customers for customization of the product.

One of the most common customization requests is for the ability to customize the field list display. In this article, I will share a technique on how to accomplish this.

Very often the names for fields are not intuitive or descriptive enough for the ad hoc user, so the request is to have the DESCRIPTION be the first column in the field list. This way the first thing users see when they look at the list is the description.

Here’s how to make this change.

The field list is built using the JavaScript file, fldlst2.js, located in the /ibi_html/javaassist/ibi/html/assist directory. The JavaScript file unchanged contains the following variables and values:

var bShowName = true;
var bShowAlias = true;
var bShowTitle = false;
var bShowRemarks = false;
var bShowFormat = true;
var bShowDescription = false;
var bShowSegment = true;
var bShowFilename = false;

Looking at the above code you will see that the default for the fields list is Name, Alias, Format and Segment. If you look at the Screen 1, you will see the default field list for the CENTINV data source.

Screen 1

To make the Description the first column, we need to change the fldlst2.js file to read as follows:

var bShowName = false;
var bShowAlias = false;
var bShowTitle = false;
var bShowRemarks = false;
var bShowFormat = false;
var bShowDescription = true;
var bShowSegment = false;
var bShowFilename = false;

With those changes, the fields list will appear as shown on Screen 2.

Screen 2

After you make DESCRIPTION the first column in your fields list, the change will be reflected on the Fields tab only, though you can get to the fields list from several places in the tool. You will notice that the change is reflected in the Managed Reporting Environment and the Business Intelligence Dashboard.

As you can see, this is an easy change that could make your life much easier when using the product. And there are many more customization tips that I will share with you in future issues of the WebFOCUS Newsletter.