Action

An action defines navigation and user interaction for the Agentry Client. Actions are composed of a series of action steps of varying types. An action is defined to allow the user to interact with the application in some way.

The action defines the object its steps will act upon, any may also define whether or not users will be permitted to cancel the action once it has been executed, and also an optional separate action to execute if the action is cancelled.

The behavior of the action is dictated primarily by its child action step definitions. There are different types of action steps for different types of Agentry Client behaviors. Each action step defines a specific task to be performed on the Agentry Client.

Actions can be referenced by several different components of the user interface, such as buttons, list screens, and others. Whenever an action is executed it will be passed an object instance. This object instance is determined by the user interface component executing the action. The action must be defined for an object type. This object type for the action and the type of object passed to the action on the Agentry Client must be the same. The exception this is when the action is not defined for any object. Such actions are limited in use and normally pertain to performing transmits between the Agentry Client and Agentry Server, or actions that close screen sets but do not open others.

Action Child Definitions

Action Step: An action step defines a single task within an action that is a part of the overall action execution on the Agentry Client.

Action Attributes

  • Name: This is the unique internal name for the action within the application project. This value must be unique among all actions defined within the same module.
  • Display Name: This attribute contains the name displayed for the action on the Agentry Client.
  • Group: This attribute specifies the group into which the action will be organized within the application project. This attribute has no impact on the action’s behavior at run time.
  • For Object: This attribute specifies the object for which the action is defined. An instance of this object must be passed to the action by the Agentry Client user interface component executing the action. Therefore, both this attribute and UI component must have the same type of object defined or in scope when the action is executed.
  • Enable Rule: This attribute references a rule definition called in the context of the object currently in scope on the user interface and is expected to return a Boolean value. When the rule returns true the action will be enabled and can be executed. When the returns false the action will be disabled and cannot be executed. Any buttons defined to execute a disabled action will be displayed as disabled controls.
  • Disable Cancel: This attribute specifies whether or not users can cancel an action once its execution begins. This setting primarily affects the behavior of screen sets defined to display transactions or fetches and are displayed by the action. When Disable Cancel is set to true, screen sets will not contain a cancel button, preventing the user from canceling the action. When set to false (default) the wizards will contain a cancel button.
  • Cancel Action: This attribute references another action within the same module to be executed when the parent action is canceled. The cancel action will be executed in the same context as the action that was executed first and then canceled by the user. The action selected here must exist prior to making a selection.