topic Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue in ArcGIS Viewer for Flex Questions

eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

JayCarpenter — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 15:23:29 GMT

App Versions: Flexviewer 3.5, eSearch 3.5.4, Identify Widget 3.5.1 (all compiled and flex app builder has not been used)

I have an issue with hyperlinking from the flexviewer that occurs on both the eSearch
and Identify widgets by Robert Scheitlin. This post is focused on the eSearch Widget
but may be important to note that this issue occurs in the identify widget as well.

In the feature data/operational layer a field provides the folder path location (Sample: \\Machine2\structures\culverts\Folder)
The desired result is for the link to open windows explorer at the particular folder location defined in the field.
Both widgets work perfectly from the widget results window but not from the popup window.

I can control the problem by eliminating the popup links in Identify with <disablepopuplinks>
but in eSearch I used disableinpopups="true" in <link></link>. This removes the troublesome link
but if I hover over the result in the datagrid the link shows up in the popup immediately.
If the link in the popup is clicked in either widget I get an IE page 404 error.

Error page details: Requested URL: http//machine1:80/flexappfolder/machine2/strutures/culverts/folder
Physical Path: D:\inetpu\wwwroot\flexviewer\flexappfolder\machine2\structures\culverts\folder

My flexviewer involves 2 machines on an intranet.
Machine1: Web server and location of flexviewer
Machine2: Hyperlinked Folders location (In machine1 webserver IIS 7 D:\inetpu\wwwroot\flexviewer\flexappfolder\machine2\structures is set as a virtual directory)

There are two scenarios that would solve my problem:
1. figure out how to get the popup link to work as it does in the results window
2. be able to disable the link in the popup even after hovering over the record in the datagrid.

Much appreciation for the wonderful service these widgets provide and the amazing support.

J-

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

AnthonyGiles — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 15:52:39 GMT

Jay,

In IIS have you enabled directory browsing for the virtual directory?

If so, you are best to use a URL path in your field not a UNC path, ie: http://servername/... Not \\servername\...

Regards

Anthony

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

JayCarpenter — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 16:45:11 GMT

Jay,

In IIS have you enabled directory browsing for the virtual directory?

If so, you are best to use a URL path in your field not a UNC path, ie: http://servername/... Not \\servername\...

Regards

Anthony

Anthony,

No, I did not have directory browsing enabled. I am shooting for the link to open in Windows Explorer and not IE so I planned to avoid that. I guess I could try that and use "file:///Machine2/structures/culverts/Folder" as the field value but the curious thing is that the current link works in the results but not the popup. Not sure why?

J-

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

AnthonyGiles — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 16:57:03 GMT

You are always best to use URLs in a web application not UNC paths, this has been explained in numerous threads. I would go down the URL route.

Regards

Anthony

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 17:03:54 GMT

Jay,

The reason they do not work properly in the popups is because links are transformed into HTML <a href="link path">link text</a> in the popups HTML markup and a UNC path like you are trying to use does not work well as it thinks that the \\ is actually // and there for tries to use the application url path in front of the linkpath to get a valid URL. Any way long way of saying that UNC path are not going to work. The widget result handle this because it doe not do a HTML markup conversion. I do see the issue in the datagrid components that is ignoring the disableinpopup, and I will fix that in the next release.

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

JayCarpenter — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 18:10:13 GMT

Since everything works other than the popups in Identify and eSearch I am going to leave this version as is and deal with the undesirable link behavior and upgrade to URL in the next version. The default flexviewer popup even works fine with UNC.

I quickly calculated another field "FolderURL" as such: "file:///Machine2/structures/culverts/Folder" and changed parameters in the popup xml, eSearch and Identify and none worked. I will search deeper into previous posts as Anthony mentioned it has been discussed at length.

Thanks to the both of you for your input.

J-

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 18:32:36 GMT

Jay,

The default flexviewer popup even works fine with UNC.

I did not relize that... I dont use UNC paths in web application (just not adviseable) so I never tried and I definetly have not tried to just open a folder. I will have to look into why the standard esri popup handles this and my use of it does not.

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

JayCarpenter — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 19:38:59 GMT

Snippet from popup xml
<field name="FullStructureFolderPath" alias="Filename" visible="true"/>
</fields>
<medias>
<media caption="Click here for more information" type="image" imagesource="assets/images/i_folder.png" imagelink="{FullStructureFolderPath}"/>
</medias>

Robert, Our end users want the links to open the folder locations where they store all of the information about critical structures. That is the driving force behind the way we have approached the project. Everything resides on an internal network.

Btw, we even have links working on the legacy Selection Widget but are pushing to abandon in favor of your eSearch due to your continued support and the lack thereof for the Selection widget.

Thanks again for all you do!

J-

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 20:16:25 GMT

Jay,

OK this makes sense now why you are able to get this to work in the OTB popup. You are actually using a icon link and thus bypassing the HTML markup conversion issue I am having in my popups.

So can you attach how you are defining the link in the eSearchWidget.xml

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

JayCarpenter — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 21:01:03 GMT

Robert,

Here is a poor copy and paste job of the <links> portion of the xml

<field name="FullStructureFolderPath" visible="false"/>
</fields>
<links>
<link alias="Structure Folder Link" diablelinksifnull="true" disableinpopups="true">
<![CDATA[{FullStructureFolderPath}]]>
<icon><![CDATA[assets/images/i_folder.png]]></icon>
</link>
</links>

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:04:02 GMT

Jay,

So version 3.6.2 will address both of your issues, being able to use a UNC folder path in the url and having the disableinpopups tag NOT ignored by the datagrids popups. I will release this version soon. Thanks for the info to help me diagnose these issues.

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

JayCarpenter — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:06:56 GMT

Robert,

Wonderful! Thank you again for your service to all of us.

Jay

Re: eSearch/Identify Hyperlink issue

RobertScheitlin__GISP — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 20:30:40 GMT

Jay,

Oh, let me qualify me statement about being able to use UNC patch in the links...

You have to do it the same way you are currently doing for esri OTB popups. Meaning that the link should look like this in the eSearchWidget.xml

            <links>
                <link alias="link" disablelinksifnull="true" disableinpopups="false">
                    <![CDATA[{URL}]]>
                    <icon><![CDATA[assets/images/i_folder.png]]></icon>
                </link>
            </links>

If you do not specify the icon then it will go the same old route in the code and do the HTML markup thing and they will still not work. But if you do specify the icon for the link it will first test if the actual link url is some type of image and if not it will look if the link icon is specified, if so then it will do like the OTB popups and add a PopUpMediaInfo for the link url.