JavaScript Extension : customEntityRemoveButton

Posted on April 8, 2020December 9, 2020 by Richard Napier

Once again I came across this question on another forum, so I answered there and decided to reproduce it here in more detail. As some of you are no doubt aware, there are a number of smaller extensions in respect of Entity Collects, that all the developer to manage the process of deleting, or adding instances without having to completely redesign the Entity Collect which is a heavier task by an order of magnitude. customEntityRemoveButton is a good example.

The question, very pertinent I must say, concerned the deletion of instances, and the fact that there is no confirmation dialog. You click the button and the suppression just happens, without a chance to say “oops, didn’t mean that one”. Enter the customEntityRemoveButton!

An Entity Collect
The Delete Instance Button that will be customized with a customEntityRemoveButton extension

The extension in question is known as a customEntityRemoveButton, and it has a unique handler which you might not have come across. This handler is known as setInstance – and the job of this handler is to provide the instance identifier. So, for a scenario, if you create three instances, then obviously each button needs to know which instance it belongs to, so to speak. This handler fires first (even before the mount handler it seems) so that you can recover the identifier and then use it to ensure the right button does the right job.

The example scenario is that the user would love to have a confirmation dialog. And since I’m often accused to using too much jQuery, this one is in native JavaScript. It would look like this perhaps:

/*  Generated by the OPA Hub Website 07/04/2020 17:54
Educational Example of Custom Remove Instance Button Extension for Oracle Policy Automation
I will remember this is for demonstration purposes only.
 */
 let mycontext = "";
OraclePolicyAutomation.AddExtension({
	customEntityRemoveButton: function (control, interview) {
		if (control.getProperty("name") == "xRemoveButton") {
			return {
				mount: function (el) {
					var div_parent = document.createElement("div");
					div_parent.id = "xButton_parent";
					el.appendChild(div_parent);
					console.log("Button mounted");
					makebutton(mycontext,el,control);
				},
				setInstance: function (el) {
					console.log("Button set Instance for " + el.toString());
					mycontext = el;
				},
				update: function (el) {
					console.log("Button updated for " + el.innerText);
				},
				unmount: function (el) {
					if (control.getProperty("name") == "xRemoveButton" ) {
						console.log("Unmount");
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
})
function makebutton(instance, mycontext,control) {
	var div = document.createElement("button");
	div.id = "xRemoveButton" + instance;
		div.innerHTML = "Remove Me " + instance;
	div.onclick = function () {
		var goahead = confirm("Are you Sure?");
		
		if(goahead === true) 
		{control.removeInstance(instance);return false;}
	
	else{
		alert("No delete");return false;
	}
			
	};
	mycontext.appendChild(div);
}

I repeat that this is just a quick demonstration that I pulled together from somewhere in my head. The documentation on line is very thin concerning this particular handler and indeed these extensions in general.