Layout Maintenance for Web Requests 

Use

The following contains information on how to maintain the layout of the BSP pages of the Web request generated by the system. With this final layout formation you can adjust the appearance of the request forms in the Web client and the functional aspects (for example, navigation, error handling, field default entries and so on) to suit the requirements of your organization.

The appearance of the Web request form, as seen in the Web client, is determined in the layout of the Business Server Page/s (BSP) of a Web request and the request data structure assigned as an XML file.  Only one request data structure is allowed for each Web request irrespective of the number of Business Server Pages that you have intended for a Web request that refer to the BSPs. For more information, see Request Data Structure.

Features

The layout of a Business Server Page consists of the following components:

·        Usual HTML formatting for forming the page layout

·        Client-side JavaScript (for example, for entry checks)

·        Server-side Scripting instructions

This includes ABAP instructions used to call methods and  events, field parameters of the XML request data structure, server-side error messages and online text repository texts.

Scripting instructions are indicated in the layout using „<%...%>“ and are color contrasted from the usual source code (default blue). They are replaced in the page at execution time by the dynamically generated results of the script.

The following graphic illustrates how a Web request is called. The HTML page built in the Web Client (browser) is based on the HTML formatting defined in the BSP layout as well as the attributes of the input fields defined in the request data structure. The data on the request data structure is derived using the server-side scripting instructions. The relationships between an input field of the HTML layout and their field content is created in the BSP layout using the corresponding Xpath of the request data structure.

Graphic: Structure of HTML layout of Web request

Activities

You maintain the layout of a Business Server Page in the Web Application Builder. You get to this by choosing the button Change after generating a BSP application of a Web request (see step 5 under Setting up Web Requests) in the detail processing of a request category view (IMG activity Define Request Categories).

 

HTML Layout

You can use the internal text editor or external HTML editors for maintaining the page layout of a Business Server Page.  You use the internal text editor to maintain the source text directly in the BSP development environment. This requires good knowledge of HTML and is usually very long.

Alternatively, you can use external HTML editors such as the usual design tools (Adobe GoLive, Dreamweaver) or Microsoft Frontpage. You assign an external HTML editor in the Web Application Builder, under Utilities ® Settings on the tab page Business Server Pages. You then start maintaining the source text using the external HTML editor via Edit ® Start Local HTML Editor.

Note that certain HTML tags are not allowed in the layout of signature pages (see Digital Signature for Web Requests).

 

Client-Side JavaScript

You can use JavaScript for client-side checks and other client-side actions. All possibilities of JavaScript are possible. For more information, see JavaScript in Web Requests.

 

Server-Side Scripting Instructions

You can use server-side Scripting instructions to define more layout definitions and/or event control of a Web request. For more information, see:

·        Server-Side Scripting Instructions: Layout Definition

·        Server-Side Scripting Instructions: Event Control