oracle.dss.thin.beans
Interface ThinBean

All Known Subinterfaces:

ThinBeanUI, ThinDataviewCommon, ViewTool

All Known Implementing Classes:

Query

public interface ThinBean

Methods that define a BI Beans thin bean. BI Beans thin beans are components for HTML-client applications.

The ThinBeanName uniquely identifies an instance of a ThinBean in the request processing code of a servlet.

Thin beans can also keep track of state information. For example, the Query keeps track of information about its dimensions and dimension members, layout, whether a dimension has been drilled, and so on. As users interact with a thin bean, its internal state changes. This state information is important for supporting the Back button in a user's browser and for supporting bookmarks.

After you load the thin bean from the BI Beans Catalog and finish any standard initialization that you perform on all thin beans in your application, call the setBaseState method to have the thin bean start tracking its internal state.

Use the getState and setState methods to convey state information between the thin bean and the URL. You can store state information directly in the URL, or you can store it in an oracle.cabo.servlet.state.State object, storing an ID to the State object in the URL. You can store the State object in the HTTP session, to support the browser's Back button, or you can store it in the BI Beans Catalog, to support bookmarking.

BI Beans provides a default implementation of an application controller, the ServletRequestHandler, which can process thin-bean events and set thin-bean state.

For more information about managing state in a thin-bean application, see the BI Beans Help system.

See Also:

ServletRequestHandler

Method Summary

java.lang.String	getState() Retrieves the state of this thin bean.
java.lang.String	getThinBeanName() Retrieves the unique name of this thin bean.
void	setBaseState() Establishes a base state for the ThinBean, from which state changes are tracked.
void	setState(java.lang.String state) Sets the state of this ThinBean.
void	setThinBeanName(java.lang.String thinBeanName) Specifies a unique name for this thin bean.

Method Detail

setThinBeanName

public void setThinBeanName(java.lang.String thinBeanName)

Specifies a unique name for this thin bean. You may have multiple instances of a thin bean in an application. Thin-bean events use the ThinBeanName as the value of the source query parameter, to identify the thin bean that should handle the event.

Parameters:

thinBeanName - A unique name for this thin bean.

See Also:

BIConstants.SOURCE

getThinBeanName

public java.lang.String getThinBeanName()

Retrieves the unique name of this thin bean. The ThinBeanName uniquely identifies a thin bean in an application. Thin-bean events use the ThinBeanName as the value of the source query parameter, to identify the thin bean that should handle the event.

Returns:

The name of this thin bean.

See Also:

BIConstants.SOURCE

setBaseState

public void setBaseState()

Establishes a base state for the ThinBean, from which state changes are tracked. This method clears the current state string for the thin bean.

Whenever you instantiate a thin bean, call this method. If you perform standard initialization every time you load a thin bean, then call this method after the standard initialization code. If you do custom initialization on some, but not all, thin beans, then call this method before the custom initialization code. Any changes that you make to a thin bean state after you call this method are added to the state string that the getState method returns.

setState

public void setState(java.lang.String state)

Sets the state of this ThinBean. This method takes the state information from a state string and sets it on this thin bean. The state string represents changes that have been made to this thin bean since the last call to the setBaseState method.

Where you get the state string depends on whether you store state information directly in the URL or in an oracle.cabo.servlet.state.State object. If you store state in the URL, then the state string comes from the URL. If you store state in a State object and store the ID of that object in the URL, then the state comes from the State object. In either case, the stored information originally should have come from a call to the getState method of this thin bean.

Setting the state of a thin bean lets you recreate a previously displayed page.

Call this method before you handle any thin-bean events. Thin-bean events often change the state of thin beans, so calling this method after you handle events causes the effects of the event handling to be overwritten.

Parameters:

state - The string that represents the state of this thin bean.

See Also:

getState()

getState

public java.lang.String getState()

Retrieves the state of this thin bean. The String that this method returns represents changes that have been made to this thin bean since the last call to its setBaseState method. Call this method after you handle any thin-bean events to get the current state of this thin bean.

You can store this state information directly in the URL, or you can store the state string in an oracle.cabo.servlet.state.State, and store the ID of the State in the URL.

The state information accrues as a user interacts with a thin bean, so the String that this method returns grows larger with each request that involves this thin bean. For example, the state of a Query might include information about the measures and selections in the query. If a user drills, then the drill information is added to the state string. If a user changes the layout of the query, then the new layout information is added as well. Each modification to the thin bean adds to the state string. If you store the state of all of the thin beans in your application in the URL, then you must be careful to avoid exceeding the URL limit for any browser that your application supports.

Call this method after you handle any thin-bean events.

Returns:

The state changes for this thin bean since the last call to setBaseState. Unless you use checkpointing, the returned state string represents the current state of this thin bean.

See Also:

setState(java.lang.String), setBaseState(), CheckpointState