Customising the Standard Web Enactment Interface: Customised Task Pages
Although most customisations can be done using the mapping file, there are several cases where it is advisable to use separate customised task pages:
- When adding dynamic content, as this can only be achieved via a jsp file.
- When there are many customised tasks, each with a lot of content, as the mapping file can become large and less efficient both in terms of editing and in terms of running the process.
Creating a Customised Task Page
The Tallis Web Enactment application dynamically creates standard web pages for tasks that don’t have the mappings to specify alternative content. The HTML code of these pages can be saved, edited and reused by Tallis during future enactments of the process-description.
Follow the steps below to use the dynamically generated code produced by the Tallis Web Enactment application:
- Start the enactment process: Run through the guideline until you reach the task you wish to associate with customised content.
- Capture the generated code: Right-click on the page in question and select ‘view-source’.
- The dynamically generated content for each task is created within the following comment tags to allow ease of location:
- <!-- start of automatically generated content -->
- generated content
- <!-- end of automatically generated content -->
- Copy the html between the comment tags and save the resulting text.
- Edit the generated code and save it: The new file MUST be accessible to the Tallis web-application you wish to run. This does not mean that the file must be contained within the Tomcat installation, only that it can be delivered via HTTP.
- Edit the mapping file: The customised page has to be specified in the mapping file, using the URI attribute of the task tag (see The Mapping File > Task Elements)
- Edit the PROforma process-description: Add the necessary context properties to the top-level plan (the mapping file has to be located and pointed to as described in The Mapping File > Location and The Mapping File > Pointing to the Mapping File).
When creating a separate customised task page, it’s best to use jsp files as they are less likely to cause errors.
Customisations in a separate task file override customisations in the mapping file.
Required Content for Customised Task Pages
Specific information is required by the server for a task to be processed, with different task types requiring different information for a request to be successful. If minimal editing of the automatically generated content is performed (e.g., structural changes to layout), this is generally not an issue. However, if the content is significantly altered or has been built from scratch, this additional information may need to be explicitly managed.
Actions, plans and keystone tasks
The web enactment generates a "hidden" form for these task types, which will contain all the information required by the server for the correct processing of the task in question. No HTML form or extra content management is required.
Decisions
A decision is required to submit which candidate(s) the user wishes to commit for the task to be successfully processed. Care must be taken not to change the field names that are generated (HTML input and select tags).
If the decision is also authored to request specific dataitems, these fields will also need to be managed (see Enquiries below for further details).
Enquiries
An enquiry is required to submit values for dataitems marked as mandatory for the task to be successfully processed. Care must be taken not to change the field names that are generated (HTML input and select tags).