Hyperlinks can appear in several places on an interactive form; for example, on the page in the form of a hyperlink control or as the target of a form action. They allow the form to open a resource, such as a webpage or contact. Hyperlinks may also open other forms, allowing you to nest and re-use your form designs.
Targets
The resource opened by the hyperlink is referred to as its target. Depending on where a hyperlink appears, your choice of targets may be restricted (e.g. you cannot link to a page if the form is closing).
URL
The most common type of target, this allows the hyperlink to open a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), such as a web address. You can also use a ContactsLaw URL or any application-specific URL scheme (e.g. Skype).
Advanced users:
You can insert values from records and controls into a URL. This is useful when you want the location to vary with the user's input. The syntax is the same as is used for values in rule conditions; you denote the value by enclosing it in curly braces.
e.g. http://www.google.com.au/#q={contact1.FileAs} -> http://www.google.com.au/#q=Smith,+John |
Page
Allows you to navigate to a different page of the current form. This is useful if you need to skip over or go back several pages without requiring the user to click 'Next' or 'Back'. Note that any rules or validation criteria associated with the pages in-between will NOT be evaluated.
Contact/File
Opens a contact or file in ContactsLaw. If used on a hyperlink control, the contact/file must already exist; otherwise, contacts/files created by the form may also be used.
Form
Opens another interactive form ("nesting" within the current form).
You can pass information to the form as well as receive information from the form (when the user clicks the Finish button). Similar to how information is passed between activities in a document workflow in ContactsLaw, you decide which value populates (or is populated by) a particular directive.
Note that you cannot populate/use information on the target form unless it is exposed as a directive. If the target form creates/updates a contact or file which is also used by your form, you must define the appropriate record(s) and populate the contact/file by passing information between the two forms.
See also