Contents   Introduction   Concepts   User Help   Modeler Help   Browser Help
Administrator Help   Developer Help    Utility Help   Visio   Graphical Modeler

Property Types

The following property types are defined in EVA Netmodeler. These property types are used to define the list of legal properties, which are in turn used to define the types of information to be managed in the repository. This list of property types is included for easy reference, but you should refer to the property types button in the Type Browser for the most up to date list of property types available in your repository.

• The Archie2Calc property type (Common Name="Calc Fields")
• The Archie2Color property type
• The Archie2Content property type
• The Archie2Date property type
• The Archie2DateCreated property type
• The Archie2Decimal property type
• The Archie2Directory property type
• The Archie2DiscThread property type
• The Archie2Discussion property type
• The Archie2DiscussionCalc property type (Common Name="Long Calc Fields")
• The Archie2DiscussionHTML property type
• The Archie2Document property type
• The Archie2Font property type
• The Archie2HelpHotlink property type
• The Archie2HotLink property type
• The Archie2LastUpdated property type
• The Archie2Lookup property type
• The Archie2Password property type
• The Archie2SelectBrowser property type
• The Archie2Template property type
• The Archie2TouchedBy property type
• The Archie2UpdatedBy property type
• The ArchiePicture property type
• The String property type

The Archie2Calc property type (Common Name="Calc Fields")

General behavior

This property type contains a Smalltalk code snippet which is compiled and executed at display time. It therefore allows users to specify attributes whose values are calculated on the fly before they are displayed. Calc fields may be "nested", in other words, calc fields may calculate their values from the results of other calc fields.

During edit or create mode, the user may enter any valid Smalltalk code snippet, up to 256 characters.

Instances of a type will automatically inherit the contents of the corresponding calc field specified in the default instance.

Permitted Values and Value Length

The value must be any valid Smalltalk code snippet. If the compile for that snippet fails, the compile error will be displayed as the property value.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2Color property type

General behavior

This property type is used to display color values. Color values are used mainly in the Calendar Browser (to identify separate calendar items) and in the domain tree browser (to distinguish domains). During display mode, properties of this type show the text description of their value on a background of the color represented by that description.

During edit or create mode, these properties provide a dropdown list containing the standard list of web named colors. A hotlink is also provided that will pop up a window displaying the actual color grid in order to facilitate choice.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Only values selected from the dropdown box are permitted.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2Content property type

General behavior

This property type is used to store links to other web pages. For example, if the value of this property is "http://www.inspired.org", the value will be displayed like this: http://www.inspired.org during display mode.

During edit or create mode, a simple input box is provided where the user may type in the web address.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Ideally, all values should start with "http://" and be a valid URL. No validation is performed on this field at edit time.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2Date property type

General behavior

This property type is used to store dates. Dates can be in one of two modes, "UNKNOWN" or "KNOWN". Unknown dates are displayed as the string "UNKNOWN" at display time, whereas known dates are displayed in the regional date format specified by the server.

During edit or create mode, the current value of the date field is always displayed in the CCYY-MM-DD format and should be entered using this format. However, the DD MMM CCYY format will also be interpreted correctly. Any value that cannot be interpreted as a valid date becomes "UNKNOWN".

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any valid date in the CCYY-MM-DD or DD MMM CCYY formats.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2DateCreated property type

General behavior

This property is used to store the date of original creation of an item in the repository. It holds a date and time stamp. It is never updated.

Permitted Values and Value Length

A valid value is a timestamp string in the format: CCYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2Decimal property type

General behavior

This property type is used to store numeric values. When creating properties of this type, the user can specify an edit mask that will determine the numeric precision of the value. For example, an edit mask of "0" will cause the value to be an integer, while an edit mask of "0.00" will cause the value to have a precision of up to two decimal places. During display mode, the value will be displayed using this mask.

During edit or create mode, a normal text input box is provided. Any value entered in this box is translated into a numeric value and the result of this translation becomes the value of the attribute.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any valid numeric value.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2Directory property type

General behavior

This property allows the user to specify a directory. The directory must be specified in a format from the perspective of the server. For example, the directory "E:\MyDir\" would only be valid if that is the actual drive name from the server's perspective.

In edit and create mode, a normal text input box is provided where the value may be entered. In display mode, the display part of the value will be shown as a hyperlink, clicking on this link will cause the Directory Maintenance screen to pop up as a new window. This screen will be focused on the directory specified by the value of this property.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Although any string value can be entered by a user, the following guidelines apply to this property type:

The directory must be entered together with its ending directory terminator character: e.g. "C:\MyDir\" instead of "C:\MyDir". If only the directory is specified, the value displayed as a hyperlink will be the directory name.

Should you wish to display a different string from the directory name as the hotlink, you may specify the display part of the name, this part is delimited by a pipe character (i.e. "|"). So, if you enter a value like this: "C:\MyDir\|Click here to see my backup directory", the part after the pipe character will be displayed to the user, but the part before the pipe character will be used as the directory to be browsed.

Finally, a user may use a setting value for the directory part of the string. For example, the user may wish the directory indicated by the "SystemImagePath" setting to be browsed from this property display. If this is the case the value should be entered as follows: "SETTING:SystemimageURL|Click here to browse files in the system image directory".

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2DiscThread property type

General behavior

This property type is intended to allow users to create a discussion thread on the item to which a property of this type belongs. It is therefore a collaboration feature.

If a property of this type has no current value, a "discuss" button will be displayed as the property value. When a user clicks on this button, the Discussion Thread Create screen will be displayed as a popup window. The user completes this window and clicks "CREATE".

A new window, namely the "Discussion Browser" will be displayed. This window will be focused on the new discussion root just created. From this window users may reply to the discussion item and view all items in the discussion thread.

If a property has a current value, the "discuss" button, together with the title of the discussion root item will be displayed. When the user clicks on any of these items, the Discussion Browser will pop-up focused on this discussion.

Values for this property type cannot be changed during edit or create mode.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Since the user cannot change the value, this section is irrelevant to this property type.

The Archie2Discussion property type

General behavior

Discussion property types allow users to enter long descriptions or pieces of text, in edit or create mode, a TEXT AREA will be displayed into which users may enter multiple lines of text. The TEXT AREA will display both horizontal and vertical scroll bars.

In display mode, the text is encoded for HTML display (i.e. HTML control characters are encoded so that they don't get interpreted as part of the page's HTML. Carriage-return linefeed occurrences are encoded to "<BR>", which will cause line breaks to appear in HTML similar to those entered by the user.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any string is a valid value.

Maximum length of the value is the maximum length of HTML form controls (8K).

The Archie2DiscussionCalc property type (Common Name="Long Calc Fields")

General behavior

The only difference between this property type and the "Archie2Calc" property type, is that this property type can hold text with a length greater than 256 characters, it can therefore be regarded as a hybrid of "Archie2DiscussionCalc" and "Archie2Discussion".

This property type contains a Smalltalk code snippet which is compiled and executed at display time. It therefore allows users to specify attributes whose values are calculated on the fly before they are displayed. Calc fields may be "nested", in other words, calc fields may calculate their values from the results of other calc fields.

During edit or create mode, the user may enter any valid Smalltalk code snippet in a multi-line TEXT AREA control.

Instances of a type will automatically inherit the contents of the corresponding calc field specified in the default instance.

Permitted Values and Value Length

The value must be any valid Smalltalk code snippet. If the compile for that snippet fails, the compile error will be displayed as the property value.

Maximum length of the value is the maximum length of HTML form controls (8K).

The Archie2DiscussionHTML property type

General behavior

Discussion HTML property types allow users to enter long descriptions in HTML in edit or create mode, a TEXT AREA will be displayed into which users may enter multiple lines of text. The TEXT AREA will display both horizontal and vertical scroll bars.

A "HTML Editor" button will be displayed as well. When the user clicks on this button, a pop-up window will be displayed. A JavaScript HTML Editor may be enabled on this popup-window by using the "EditScreenBottomScript" setting.

Unlike the Archie2Discussion Property Type, text is not encoded during display mode. The HTML contained in properties of this type will become part of the HTML for the page and will be processed as such by the browser.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any string is a valid value, normal HTML standards apply.

Maximum length of the value is the maximum length of HTML form controls (8K).

The Archie2Document property type

General behavior

Properties of this type allow users to upload documents to the server. When the document is uploaded, it becomes the value of the property.

In create mode, a normal text input control will be displayed, together with an "Upload Document" button. When the user clicks on this button, a pop-up window is displayed, this window will allow the user to upload any document to the server. When the document has completed uploading, the pop-up window disappears and the file name is automatically inserted on the create screen.

In edit mode, a drop-down box is displayed showing all documents on the server belonging to that property (i.e. Many documents may have been uploaded during the lifetime of an item, and this dropdown allows the user to select which one must be the "active" value for the property). In addition, an "Upload" button is displayed. When the user clicks on this button, an upload window is displayed, this window will allow the user to upload any document to the server. When the document has completed uploading, the edit window will be displayed with file name automatically inserted.

During display mode, the name of the document or file is displayed as an HTML link, when the user clicks on this link, a new window will pop up and the document or file will be served to the browser from the web server. In additional to the link, the user will also see two buttons (i.e. "upload" and "versions"). The "upload" button allows users to upload documents without having to edit the item, while the "versions" button allows the users to view all versions of the document belonging to this property.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Valid values for this property type are governed by the operating system's file naming conventions.

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2Font property type

General behavior

This property type is used to display font values. Font values are used mainly in the domain tree browser (to distinguish domains). During display mode, properties of this type show the text description of their value in the font represented by that description.

During edit or create mode, these properties provide a dropdown list containing the standard list of web named fonts. A hotlink is also provided that will pop up a window displaying the font names displayed in their respective fonts in order to facilitate choice.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Only values selected from the dropdown box are permitted.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2HelpHotlink property type

General behavior

Properties of this type allow the users to provide help on instances of a type. For example, if the user enters a value of "MyHelpFile" as the value of this property, this value will be changed to:

Value of the "HelpURL" setting + "MyHelpFile" + ".htm"

when it is displayed

During display mode, the following image will be displayed as the value of this property: . When the user clicks on the image, a new window will pop-up and navigate to the location of the new value described above.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any string that can be used as the name of an ".htm" file is a valid value (excluding the file extension).

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2HotLink property type

General behavior

This property type is used to store links to other web pages and is very similar to the Archie2Content property type. If the value of this property is "http://www.inspired.org", the value will be displayed like this: http://www.inspired.org during display mode. It also offers the facility to specify a different display string delimited by a pipe character. For example, if the value of this property is "http://www.inspired.org|Inspired Web Site", the value will be displayed like this: Inspired Web Site during display mode.

During edit or create mode, a simple input box is provided where the user may type in the web address.

Permitted Values and Value Length

All values must start with a valid URL scheme identifier as defined by the w3c, and be a valid URL. No validation is performed on this field at edit time.

Length can be up to 256 characters.

The Archie2LastUpdated property type

General behavior

Items that have a property of this type, will automatically track the last time they were changed. The value of properties of this type is maintained by the system and cannot be changed by users. Every time an edit is performed on an item, the value of properties of this type attached to that item will be changed to the current server timestamp.

Permitted Values and Value Length

A valid value is a timestamp string in the format: CCYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2Lookup property type

General behavior

The lookup data type is designed to allow the user to specify a named property that will present the user with a dropdown list of legal values on the instance create and instance edit screens.

The Lookup data type essentially has two modes of operation;

Custom built lookup lists

When using this form of lookup, you have to build your own lists of legal values per lookup set using the "LookupType" and "LookupItem" types. When creating properties of this type, simply type the name of the "LookupType" instance you require into the "Unit of Measure/ Lookup Name/ Edit Mask" field of the "Legal Property Create Screen".

During edit or create mode, a dropdown list containing all "LookupItem" instance descriptions of items belonging to this "LookupType" will be displayed. The value of the "LookupValue" property belonging to the "LookupItem" instance selected from this dropdown box will be stored as the value of the property.

During display mode, the selected "LookupItem" instance name will be displayed.

Lookup lists of internal system objects

This form of usage allows a user to display a list of internal EVA Netmodeler objects as a dropdown box during editing or creation of instances. Typical objects that can be displayed are: Types, Instances of a type, RelTypes, Named Properties, Domains, Users and so forth. To use this mode of operation, instead of entering the name of the "LookupType" on the "Legal Property Create Screen" you have to enter a keyword from the table below:

Keyword	Example	Result
TYPES:	TYPES:	Will display a drop-down list of all type definitions in EVA Netmodeler
TYPES:Domain	TYPES:Archi	Will display a drop-down list of all type definitions in EVA Netmodeler encapsulated by a domain named "Archi"
RELATIONSHIPS:	RELATIONSHIPS:	Will display a drop-down list of all RelTypes defined in EVA Netmodeler
PROPERTIES:	PROPERTIES:	Will display a drop-down list of all named properties defined in EVA Netmodeler
ITEMS:TypeName	ITEMS:ArchieSystemSettings	Will display a drop-down list of all instance names of type "ArchieSystemSettings"
FILTERS:	FILTERS:	Will display a list of all filter instance names.
USERS:	USERS:	Will display a list of all ArchieUser instance names.
DOMAINS:	DOMAINS:	Will display a drop-down list containing all domain instance descriptions

Permitted Values and Value Length

Valid values are either the keywords in the table above or the "LookupType" instance names.

Maximum length is 256 characters.

The Archie2Password property type

General behavior

This property type is intended to provide a means of entering strings such as passwords.

In edit or create mode, a text input box will be displayed, allowing the user to enter text, but since this input box is of type "PASSWORD", only password characters will be displayed instead of typed characters.

In display mode, a row of five asterisks will be displayed (i.e. "*****") as the property value.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any valid string is a valid value for this property type.

Maximum length is 256 characters.

The Archie2SelectBrowser property type

General behavior

Used mainly in the "ArchieUser" type to indicate a user's startup browser, this property type allows a user to select from a drop-down list of browser names.

In edit or create mode, a dropdown list is displayed containing the names of all browsers available in the system.

In display mode, the name of the selected browser is displayed.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Only selections from the dropdown list are valid values for properties of this type.

Maximum length is 256 characters.

The Archie2Template property type

General behavior

Properties of this type allow users to upload templates to the server. Templates are uploaded to the default node type instance. Once a template is uploaded to this default instance, it is automatically copied and the new document becomes the value for that property whenever new instances of that type are created.

In create mode, the file name of the template file belonging to the default instance is shown.

In edit mode, the file name of the template file belonging to the instance is shown.

During display mode, the name of the document or file is displayed as an HTML link, when the user clicks on this link, a new window will pop up and the document or file will be served to the browser from the web server. In additional to the link, the user will also see two buttons (i.e. "upload" and "versions"). The "upload" button allows users to upload documents without having to edit the item, while the "versions" button allows the users to view all versions of the document belonging to this property.

IMPORTANTLY, whenever the user uploads a new file to an Archie2Template property type, the name of the file is changed to that of the original template file.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Valid values for this property type are governed by the operating system's file naming conventions.

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2TouchedBy property type

General behavior

Items that have a property of this type will automatically track the last user who created or changed the item. The value of properties of this type is maintained by the system and cannot be changed by users. Every time an edit is performed on an item, the value of properties of this type attached to that item will be changed to the user id of the user who changed it.

Permitted Values and Value Length

All user ids are valid values for instances of this property type

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The Archie2UpdatedBy property type

General behavior

This property type is used to provide instance level access to users.

When an item is created containing a property of this type, the value is set to the user id of the user who created it.

When the same item is edited, a drop-down box is displayed containing a list of all user ids. As soon as a user id is selected, only that user will have edit access to that instance. However, the user has to have edit access to the type at the meta level as well.

Permitted Values and Value Length

User ids selected from the dropdown box are valid values.

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The ArchiePicture property type

General behavior

Properties of this type allow users to upload images to the server. When the image is uploaded, it becomes the value of the property.

The user may only change the value of properties of this type in edit mode. In this mode, a drop-down box is displayed showing all pictures on the server belonging to that property (i.e. Many pictures may have been uploaded during the lifetime of an item, and this dropdown allows the user to select which one must be the "active" value for the property). In addition, an "Upload" button is displayed. When the user clicks on this button, an upload window is displayed, this window will allow the user to upload any picture to the server. When the picture has completed uploading, the edit window will be displayed with file name automatically inserted.

During display mode, the actual picture will be displayed.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Valid values for this property type are governed by the operating system's file naming conventions.

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.

The String property type

General behavior

This property type is used for entering short (i.e. less than 257 character) values.

Permitted Values and Value Length

Any string value is valid for properties of this type.

Maximum length of the value is 256 characters.