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Designing Screens and Views for Siebel Handheld

Each view in a Siebel Handheld application can display a maximum of two applets at a time, regardless of the number of applets in the view. If there are more than two applets in a view, the user can navigate to additional applets by toggling.

Screen Allocation

The amount of screen space available for applets is determined by the type of applets in the view. Two applets are stacked above one another. A parent form applet in a two-applet view displays multiple fields on a screen. Users use the scroll bar to navigate. The form applet dynamically resizes if there are fewer than five fields and, therefore, does not waste screen display space with empty lines. The maximum number of fields that are displayed at one time is configurable by setting the Max Parent Applet Size preference in the User Preferences dialog. See Setting User Preferences in the Siebel Handheld Application for more information on this user preference.

Toggling Between Multiple-Applet Views

The Siebel Handheld Client application displays up to two applets at one time. If the view has only one applet, the applet takes up the entire display area. For views with two or more applets, the first two applets in the view are displayed, and the user toggles to see the other applets. The first applet is always displayed and the second applet changes as you toggle.

By default, the user toggles by choosing the View > Toggle menu item. In addition, it is recommended that you provide a toggle button as a visual cue to the end user that there are additional applets. Add a toggle button to each applet except the first applet. Identify the button with a Toggle caption and set methodInvoked to ToggleApplet.

Drill-Down Only Views

Some views may be drill-down only views—that is, they can only be accessed by navigating from another view. These views should not be accessible through the Show drop-down list. However, when the end user navigates to the view, the view title appears in the Show drop-down list. To configure a drill-down only view, set the view title as you would for any other view and set the ScreenMenu property to FALSE. See Configuring Siebel Business Applications for more information.

Applet Focus Behavior

When navigating between views, there may be instances when you need to override the default behavior for giving focus to an applet

The GotoView method is used to navigate from one view to another. A button control is added to the applet in the view you want to navigate from, the button's methodInvoked property is set to GotoView and the button's View property is set to the view that is to be created. When the GotoView method is executed, it builds the specified view. If the view includes a parent and child applet, GotoView gives focus to the child applet. This is the desired behavior in most instances when you are simply navigating from one view to another.

If the desired behavior is to navigate to a new view and, additionally, to create a new record, then you must use the GotoViewNewRecord method. This method calls two methods; first it calls GotoView, and then it calls NewRecord, which creates a new record in the new view.

In some instances the default behavior of these methods does not produce the intended behavior. For example, in the Orders view of the Service Requests screen, when you tap the Create New Order button, it takes you to the Order Details view, which contains a parent form applet (Service Request Order) and a child list applet (Service Order Entry Line Item). In this instance, when the Create New Order button's GotoViewNewRecord method is executed, you want a new order to be created. However, the default behavior is to give focus to the child applet rather than creating a new record in the parent applet. Therefore, you need to override the default behavior of GotoView with the control user property OverrideDefaultApplet, and set the value to the applet that you want to give focus. The valid values are 0 (parent) and 1 (child). For example, if you create a button labeled "Create Service Request Order," you would define user properties shown in Table 4:

Views with Associated Print Templates or Reports

Print templates are text files that you design and create for printing. After creating a print template, you associate it with an applet. When an end user chooses to print from a view, the print template that is associated with the applet is automatically selected and used for printing. Follow these guidelines when creating print templates:

• Only one print template can be associated with an applet.
• The print template name for a particular display applet is registered in the Mail Template property in the Applet object associated with the applet.
• The template must be placed in the Templates directory.
• The template name that goes into the Mail Template property should not include a path name or extension. For example, if the full path of the template is \Program Files\Siebel Handheld\Templates\InvoiceTemplate.txt, you would enter only the root name InvoiceTemplate in the property field.
• The template file itself must have a .txt extension on the device.

For more information, see Print Configuration Settings.