Beware of what getColumnValue is returning

Mark Leusink

When working with view columns that might contain multiple values, remember that the return value of the getColumnValue(“column”) method from the NotesXspViewEntry object is different depending on the number of values in the column of a specific view entry:

  • If the view entry contains a single value, a string is returned.
  • If the view entry contains multiple values, it returns a Vector.
If you always want to have a Vector as the return type, you’ll have to convert it:
var values = rowData.getColumnValue("MultiValueColumn");
if ( (typeof values).toLowerCase() == "string" ) {
 var vTmp = new java.util.Vector();
 vTmp.add(values);
 values = vTmp;
}
Converting the return type is also a possible workaround when working with nested repeat controls: if you set the Iteration to yourRowData.getColumnValue(“MultiValueColumn”) the repeat control won’t work with rows containing a single value.

Using OpenLog for logging/ debugging XPages

Mark Leusink

It probably won’t make your admins happy if you constantly use print(“this”) in you Server-Side JavaScript code to print debug or error messages to the server’s console. Luckily there is a good alternative: use OpenNTF’s OpenLog project to log everything to a central database. The only problem is that the database doesn’t contain a library for Xpages (yet).

After some digging I found out that the TaskJam app from Elguji Software does have a SSJS library to be able to log messages from to the OpenLog database. To use it:

  • Download the OpenLog database and copy it to your server.
  • Download TaskJam.
  • Copy the OpenLogXPages script library from the TaskJam template to your XPage application.
  • Open your copy of the OpenLogXPages script library and update the variable “logDbPath” to reflect the path and location of your OpenLog database.
  • The OpenLogXPages script library contains code specifically for TaskJam that tries to retrieve the location of the log database from a view called vwControlPanel: disable that code.
  • On two places in the script library a variable called location is set to session.getURL(); if not specified. This is used in the log entries to show were the message came from. Since that property doesn’t always return the correct location, I”ve changed it to view.getPageName();
  • Add the OpenLogXpages script library to every page you want to debug/ log information. You can do this by adding a “resource” to basic/ resources property of your XPage or Custom Control (clientSide = false, location = /OpenLogXPages.jss). I’ve added the library to a Custom Control that is loaded on every XPage.

You’re now able to log events or error messages in your SSJS code by using:

log.logEvent( "Hello world" );
log.logError( e.toString(), null, e );

Since you’ve already downloaded TaskJam: don’t forget to have a look at it. It contains some good examples of how to use XPages.

Clientside onLoad events on Xpages

Mark Leusink
I wanted to set the focus (client side) on an input field in my Xpage. This required:
  • adding a function to the onLoad event
  • referencing the (generated) id of my editable field: in the Xpage the element is named “userName”.

As I found out, there are a couple of ways to add clientside javascript to your Xpage (the dojo.addOnLoad function I’m using defers execution of the code until all HTML is loaded, so it doesn’t matter where you place your code):

  • Add the code directly to the XPage source: 
    <script type="text/javascript">
dojo.addOnLoad( function() {
 alert("added directly in source");
} );
</script>
  • Add a Computed Field to your Xpage, set its Content type to “HTML” and enter a value that evaluates to a string, including the <script> tags: 
    "<script type="text/javascript">" +
"dojo.addOnLoad( function() {" +
" alert("computed field");"
"} );"
"</script>"

    The value if the computed field is computed on the server, so if I want to get the generated ID of the Editable field, I have to use the getClientId() function:

    "<script type="text/javascript">" +
"dojo.addOnLoad( function() {" +
" alert("The id of the element is: " + getClientId("userName") + "");" +
"} );" +
"</script>"
  • Add an “Output script” core control to the Xpage and edit its value. This control is rendered in the browser with <script></script> tags (if “Output script” isn’t available in the menu you have to enable it in the Designer preferences through File – Preferences – Domino Designer – Palette – Core Controls): 
    dojo.addOnLoad( function() {
    alert("Output script control");
} );

    The value of the Output script is passed to the browser as clientside Javascript, but is first evaluated by the server. So if I wanted to reference a clientside document ID, I’d have to use the “#{id:userName}” syntax:

    dojo.addOnLoad( function() {
    var id = "#{id:userName}";
    alert("The id of the element is: " + id);
} );

Since the first method didn’t allow me to reference the generated ID of the Editable field and the second method required me to escape and wrap everything in quotes I went with the third method. The final code in the Output script element is now:

dojo.addOnLoad( function() {
 var objFocus = dojo.byId("#{id:userName}");
 if (objFocus) {
   if (!objFocus.disabled &amp;&amp; objFocus != "hidden") {
     objFocus.focus();
   }
 }
 } );

To set the focus only if a new document is being edited, I’ve added the following formula to the “rendered” property of the Output script control:

currentDocument.isEditable() &amp;&amp; currentDocument.isNewNote();