To use this controller with all its behavior, you must build the panels with the provided visual beans (see Visual beans). You can then define the contents of the events and fire them to the Navigation Controller using any visual bean component (such as a BTTButton, or BTTCombo).
For example, imagine you are creating a mortgage query that uses navigation among three composites, two for data entry and one for viewing results. The first step would be to design, create, and define the three composites using visual beans. The first and second composites could have entry fields for entering the mortgage data and BTTButtons for navigation, as shown in the following images:
To configure the buttons for navigation, you would set the properties of the buttons. For example, you would set the BTT_type property to Cancel to create a Cancel button.
In the BTT_navigationParameters view, you would define the next view to show the kind of navigation (peer), and where the context is linked (these fields and their behaviors have already been defined).
In the case of the Back button, you do not need to specify the previous view, because the Navigation Controller has already had a registry of the navigation information.
The following table contains a brief description of the events that may be received by a Navigation Controller and the subsequent behavior of the controller:
Type | Event received by the Navigation Controller | Navigation Controller behavior |
---|---|---|
Navigation | Open_View | Opens the new view defined by the event. The view will be modal for the rest of the navigation flow if the fixed position (X,Y) and size (W,H) has been defined in the NavigationParameter editor. See Setting parameters for OpenView and NextView. |
Navigation | Previous_View | Closes the current view and displays the previous view. |
Navigation | Next_View | Creates and opens the new view defined by the event if the current view does not have a "next" view defined in the registry. Otherwise, the Navigation Controller displays the "next" view. Note that the "next" view already exists. The view will be modal if the fixed position (X,Y) and size (W,H) has been defined in the NavigationParameter editor. See Setting parameters for OpenView and NextView. |
Navigation | Undo | Returns all the values of the peer views of the current view and their children back to the values they had before the last operation commit. To do this, the Navigation Controller initiates an ordered rollback sequence. This calls the rollback methods of all the peer and children views of the active view to undo the changes made since the last commit. |
Navigation | Close_Navigation | Closes all the views of a navigation and commits the values. See Setting parameters for Close Navigation. |
Navigation | Cancel | Returns all the values of the peer views of the current view and their children to the values they had for the last commit (see the Undo event above) and closes the views. |
Action | none | An action that does not have associated behavior. |