Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
AppBuilder

Creating extended features (XFTRs)

An XFTR is a code block that you write to customize the behavior of AppBuilder. There are two uses for XFTRs:

Adding custom run-time code.
Adding text blocks that will direct your own routines to interact with the user.

An XFTR can be self-modifying; that is, change itself based on user action. Figure C–4 shows a sample XFTR.

&ANALYZE-SUSPEND _UIB-CODE-BLOCK _XFTR "SmartDataBrowserWizard" bTableWin _INLINE /* Actions: adm2/support/_wizard.w ? ? ? adm2/support/_wizdel.p */ /* SmartDataBrowser Wizard Welcome to the SmartDataBrowser Wizard! During the next few steps, the wizard will lead you through creating a SmartDataBrowser object. First you will choose a DataSource to supply data to the SmartDataBrowser, then you can specify the columns that will be displayed in the SmartDataBrowser. Press Next to proceed. adm2/support/_wizntro.w,adm2/support/_wizds.w,adm2/support/_wizdfld.w,adm2/s upport/_wizend.w */ /* _UIB-CODE-BLOCK-END */ &ANALYZE-RESUME

Figure C–4: XFTR in browser.w template

This code does not, by itself, perform any customized processing. However, it points to other 4GL procedures (adm2/support/_wizard.w and adm2/support/_wizdel.p) that do perform customized processing. AppBuilder calls these procedures when significant AppBuilder events occur; for example, when a design window is realized or code is generated. Consequently, these procedures are called XFTR event handlers. An XFTR can reference up to five such procedures for AppBuilder events (see Table C–3).

As this example illustrates, an XFTR has five sections:

An opening &ANALYZE-SUSPEND directive (required).
A comment that maps event types to event handlers (required).
A comment that contains code passed to the event handlers (optional).
A comment that closes the code block (required).
A closing &ANALYZE-RESUME directive (required).

The following sections explain how to set up these sections.