WOGenericElement

Element Description

WOGenericElement supports development of reusable components that closely model the behavior of common HTML elements. For example, you can use WOGenericElement to implement your own image (IMG) element as a reusable component. WOGenericElement has attributes that support the takeValues... and invokeAction... phases of the component-action request/response loop.

Synopsis

WOGenericElement { elementName = aConstantString; [omitTags=aBoolean;] [elementID=identifier;] [otherTagString=aString;] [formValue=singleValue;] [formValues=arrayOfValues;] [invokeAction=aMethod;]... };

Bindings

elementName: Name of the HTML tag. This name (for example "HR") will be used to generate the element's tag (<HR>). elementName can either be a constant ora variable, such as a key path. You can also set the value of this attribute to nil or null, which effectively shuts off this element (that is, WebObjects doesn't generate HTML tags for this element). Alternatively, you can use the omitTags attribute to achieve the same effect.

omitTags: Specifies whether the element's tag should be displayed. The default value is false (or NO). If omitTags is true (or YES), the entire element is not rendered.

elementID: Allows access to the element's element ID. This is a read-only attribute.

otherTagString: Enables any string to be part of the opening tag. This permits standalone attributes such as "checked" or "selected" to be part of a tag.

formValue formValues: Enables implementation of input-type elements (for example, WOTextField). Bind these attributes to a variable that can contain the component's input value. During the takeValues... phase, if the element ID of the current generic element matches an element ID of a form value in the request, the form value is pushed into the component using this attribute. The formValue attribute corresponds to WORequest's formValueForKey: while the formValues attribute corresponds to WORequest's formValuesForKey: method; in other words, formValue pushes a single attribute while formValues pushes an array of attributes.

invokeAction: Enables implementation of action elements (for example, WOHyperlink). During the invokeAction... phase, if the element ID of the current generic element matches the sender ID of the URL, the method bound to this attribute is evaluated. Just as with any action method, it must return an object that conforms to the WOActionResults protocol, such as WOComponent or WOResponse.