The Responsemap function
 
 

In a complex business application on the web, it is natural that users expect navigation that caters to their specific business processes. In a zeroCode-generated site, the pages make certain assumptions about navigation that can be modified by designers to suit their own convenience. The assumptions are:

  1. That a List page by default remains on the current list page.
  2. That a View page by default transfers control to the Edit equivalent of that page.
  3. That an Edit page by default transfers control to the List page of that table.
  4. That Add pages repeat the Add function, allowing the user to add multiple rows of data in quick succession.
 
Custom UDMs, when created, are told where co0ntrol transfer goes, right in the first stage of the UDM creation process. This information is recorded in a response map - an XML file called responseMap.xml, stored in your site's config directory. You can edit this file to change the transfer target for any page - custom or automatically-generated. For custom UDMs, you will need to change the entry; for auto-page, you will need to add an entry if none exists (since the system assumes that, if none exist, an auto-generated page behaves per the assumptions above).
 
To get to the response map, in the left panel of the zDE Site Manager, click on the site root to see the structure of your site. This has the subdirectory called config.
 
In the responseMap file, you will see multiple entries, each beginning with a response key-word. Following that key-word is the response-pair - the combination of the requesting source URI and its target. For example, the entry
 
<response requestUdm="custom/addPrjUsr" responseUri="/custom/listPrjUsage.html"/>
 
means that the requesting custom UDM testPrjUsr, when submitted, by default will transfer control to the page listPrjUsage.
 
Care needs to be taken when editing this file. Inaccurate paths can cause unpredictable behavior. URLs need to be fully qualified with any directory structures that need to be included, and the full path must be included between quotes.
 
You may see special characters in the responseUri string - combinations like /. This string actually means / character and can be replaced, if it is intimidating.
 
Erroneous URL specification can cause control transfer to fail or to be redirected to a page that you don't want users to go to. It is always a good idea to test control transfer. You can track the transfer of control among pages by looking through the zeroCode site access log (in the logs directory of your site).