How to call jpf controller method from javascript

Question

Can any one help me how to call pageflow controller method from JavaScript.\
Thanks.

Answer 1

Accessing a particular pageflow method from Javascript is directly not possible unless we do some real funky coding in specifying document.myForm.action = xyz...Heres what I tried and it did not work as expected: I found another workaround that I will share with you.
1. In my jsp file when I click a button a call a JavaScript that calls the method that I want in pageflow like this: My method got invoked BUT when that method forwards the jsp, it lost the portal context. I saw my returned jsp only on the browser instead of seeing it inside the portlet on the page of a portal. I just see contents of jsp on full browser screen. I checked the url. This does make the sense. I do not see the url where I will have like test1.portal?_pageLabe=xxx&portlet details etc etc. So this bottom approach will notwork.
document.getElementById("batchForm").action = "/portlets/com/hid/iod/Batches/holdBatch"; // here if you give like test1.portal/pagelable value like complete url...it may work...but not suggested/recommended....
document.getElementById("batchForm").submit;
2. I achieved my requirement using a hidden variable inside my netui:form tag in the jsp. Say for example, I have 3 buttons and all of them should call their own action methods like create, update, delete on pageflow side. But I want these to be called through javascript say for example to do some validation. (I have diff usecase though). So I created a hidden field like ACTION_NAME. I have 3 javascript functions create(), update() etc. These javascripts are called onclick() for these buttons. In thse functions first I set unique value to this hiddent field appropriately. Then submit the form. Note that all 3 buttons now go to same common action in the JPF. The code is like this.
document.getElementById("ACTION_NAME").value = "UPDATE";
document.getElementById("batchForm").submit.
Inside the pageflow common method, I retriev this hidden field value and based on its value, I call one of the above 3 methods in pageflow. This works for me. There may be better solution.
3. Another usecase that I want to share and may be help others also. Most of the time very common usecase is, when we select a item in a drop bos or netui:select, we want to invoke the pageflow action. Say we have 2 dropdown boxes with States and Cities. Anytime States select box is changed, it should go back to server and get new list of Cities for that state. (We can get both states and cities and do all string tokenizer on jsp itself. But inreality as per business needs, we do have to go to server to get dynamic values. Here is the code snippet that I use and it works for all my select boxes onChange event.
This entire lines of code should do what we want.
<netui:anchor action="selectArticleChanged" formSubmit="true" tagId="selectPropertyAction"/>                    
<netui:select onChange="document.getElementById(lookupIdByTagId('selectPropertyAction',this )).onclick();" dataSource="pageFlow.selectedArticleId" >
<c:forEach items="${requestScope.ALL_ARTICLE}" var="eachArticle">
<%-- workshop:varType="com.hid.iod.forms.IoDProfileArticleRelForm" --%>
<netui:selectOption value="${eachArticle.articleIdAsString}">${eachArticle.articleItemName}</netui:selectOption>
</c:forEach>               
</netui:select>
See if you can build along those above lines of code. Any other simpler approches are highly welcome.
Thanks
Ravi Jegga