11. Integration

Explorer can be integrated into parent applications. This usecase assumes that the data stems from that parent application, and that individual rows in explorer when clicked should start some action in the parent application.

So when the parent application hosts a list of persons, and explorer allows selection of those persons, a click in explorer should start an action for the person clicked in the parent application (say, make an appointment with the clicked person).

The integration is two way;

• A click on a row can trigger functionality in a parent application. This is detailed below in Explorer to Parent.

• A click on a button in the parent application can retrieve rows currently selected in explorer. See Parent to Explorer.

The integration is assumed to function in Javascript; that is, the parent application should be able to control the Javascript environment that explorer is running in.

For each row, explorer will forward an additional (non-ui) column that identifies the row. The value of this action_column has some significance to the parent application and can be configured in the explorer configuration file as EXPLORER_ACTION_COLUMN. Note that this is a SQL column name, that should be available in the explorer table.

Note

Note that the action_column is not available in explorer group or pivot views. Those views aggregate many input rows into one output row (persons in the example), making a click on that row ambigious. The onrow click event is not bound in those views.

11.1. Explorer to Parent

A click on a row will cause Explorer to call the Javascript function defined in EXPLORER_ACTION_FUNCTION. This function needs to be set as a string value, and is evaluated in the Javascript context window. Actual evaluation happens at click, so it can be defined after the page has loaded.

The function will be called with a single [action_column] argument.

11.2. Parent to Explorer

Inside the Javascript container that is currently running the explorer frontend, the parent application can call export_json or export_json_ids to retrieve all action_columns of the currently selected rows.

Note

All rows that are in the current query are reported on, not just the ones that are on the screen.

Both functions are Javascript promise interfaces on top of rest api functions (/api/v1/export/json and /api/v1/export/jsonids).

11.2.1. Example

table_including_action_ids = await export_json()
just_the_action_ids        = await export_json_ids()