Autodesk 15606-011408-9320 User Guide - Page 39

Reports You can design customized reports for your map. A report is an HTML page generated by a script you create using a third-party tool like ColdFusion by Allaire Corporation or Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP). Report scripts combine database queries and HTML tags to dynamically generate pages on the server. These pages are then sent to the browser as standard HTML. Because the design of the HTML page is specified as part of the report script, the author of the report controls the way the page displays in the browser. In an Autodesk MapGuide Application, the report typically provides information about the selected map features or about a point the user specifies, depending on the settings the map author specified in the MWF. In some cases, database resources might be queried directly, bypassing the MWF completely. When a user views the report, Autodesk MapGuide Server sends the feature or point information to the report script, which extracts the appropriate content from a database and then displays an HTML page with the results in your web browser. Examples of reports might be demographic data for the specified layers or the latitude/longitude coordinate of the specified point. For more extensive information about reports, refer to the Autodesk MapGuide Developer's Guide. User-Updatable Map Resources You can create server applications that give users the ability to update map resources from their browsers. These resources can be database map layers, attribute data associated with a feature, or even the SDFs themselves. Updating a database from the browser uses the same mechanisms as reports use. For example, you could create a "crime watch" application. The application would include an HTML form where users could add map points representing crime incidents, as well as attribute data describing details of the incidents. Subsequent users could use the form to add their own comments to the database. In another example, you could create a redlining tool for surveyors. Using this tool, workers in the field could add polylines representing lot lines to the SDF files so that the changes would be visible to anyone else viewing the map. For more information, refer to the Autodesk MapGuide Developer's Guide. Application Development Components | 39