SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103 architecture¶

This library is a presentation-tier UI control library for classic ASP.NET WebForms — the "V2 AJAX" generation of SAIF's Infragistics-based control set (RootNamespace=SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.V2.AJAX)*. It sits above SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.V2 (base widgets) and SAIF.Presentation.Web.Binding.Infragistics103 (object-binding infrastructure), and consumes a small number of SAIF BOF business objects directly (clsHelpText/clsHelpTextCollection) for read-only help-text lookups against APPLICATION_HELP_MASTER/APPLICATION_HELP_DETAIL.

Responsibilities¶

Provide reflection-based auto-binding editor controls (AutoBindTextbox, AutoBindWebDateTimeEdit, AutoBindWebMaskEdit) that bind a control's Value to a dotted property path on a page-level model object, and surface the bound object's own IDataErrorInfo validation messages.
Orchestrate page-wide binding/validation aggregation via BindingManager, which walks the full Page.Controls tree, assigns the model (RootObject) to every iAutoBindingControl, and aggregates IsValid/ErrorMessages.
Render hover-help / hover-panel UI (HoverPanel, HoverPanelControl, HoverLabel, HoverPicture, HoverHelp, HoverHelpControl) built on the AJAX Control Toolkit's HoverMenuExtender.
Retrieve read-only, database-backed help text for a screen field or an entire application via clsHelpText/clsHelpTextCollection (SAIF BOF business objects, retrieve-only — Create/Insert/Update/Delete SQL paths are unsupported stubs).
Provide end-user grid column visibility/paging customization for UltraWebGrid instances (InfragisticsGridCustomizer, HidableInfragisticsColumn, ColumnPreferenceList, GridCustomizationPanel, ModalGridCustomizer), persisting user choices to a per-user preference store (clsPreferences).

Component boundaries¶

Auto-binding editor family (AutoBindControlAncestor → AutoBindTextbox, AutoBindWebDateTimeEdit, AutoBindWebMaskEdit, plus the iAutoBindingControl contract and BindingUtility/BindingManager helpers): owns reflection-based get/set/validate plumbing against an in-memory business object; performs no direct SQL/table access itself.
Hover-help / hover-panel family (HoverPanel, HoverPanelControl, HoverLabel, HoverPicture, HoverHelp, HoverHelpControl): owns rendering of HoverMenuExtender-based popups; HoverHelp is the only member that crosses into data access, via the clsHelpText business object.
Help-text data access (clsHelpText, clsHelpTextCollection): owns the sole database-facing boundary in this library — two IBusinessCriteria implementations issuing read-only SQL against APPLICATION_HELP_MASTER/APPLICATION_HELP_DETAIL on an Oracle database*, inferred from colon-prefixed bind-variable syntax rather than directly confirmed.
Grid customization family (InfragisticsGridCustomizer, HidableInfragisticsColumn, ColumnPreferenceList, GridCustomizationPanel, ModalGridCustomizer, InfragisticsGridCustomizerList): owns end-user column visibility/paging state for UltraWebGrid and its persistence to clsPreferences**.
SAIFAJAXControlAncestor: shared root for the AJAX display-control families in this library (CompositeControl-derived), resolving the page model (RootObject) and browser-detection helpers (IsFirefox). BindingManager is an exception: it inherits directly from CompositeControl rather than from SAIFAJAXControlAncestor.
Excluded from the compiled boundary: AutoBindTextboxControl.vb and AutoBindingControl.vb exist on disk but are not in the .vbproj <Compile> item group, so they are not part of the shipped assembly*.

Interaction model¶

Hosting ASPX pages (outside this library) invoke BindingManager.DataBind() once a page model is available; this recursively walks Page.Controls, assigns RootBindingObject on each iAutoBindingControl, and lets the standard ASP.NET control lifecycle invoke each control's own DataBind().
Each auto-binding control resolves its bound value via BindingUtility.GetObject/BindValue (reflection over a dotted property path) and writes user edits back to the bound object on postback (BindToObject), optionally re-validating against the bound object's IDataErrorInfo implementation.
HoverHelp renders help content sourced from an already-retrieved clsHelpText instance; the business object itself is retrieved via its shared factory (GetHelpText/GetHelpTexts), which drives the BOF data-portal pipeline (BeforeRetrieve/AfterRetrieve) against an Oracle database*.
ModalGridCustomizer mediates between the hosting page's UltraWebGrid, an InfragisticsGridCustomizer (in-memory column/paging state), a GridCustomizationPanel popup (user interaction), and clsPreferences (persisted defaults), rebinding the grid via ObjectBinder, DataBind, or a Custom re-raised event depending on configured BindingBehavior.
Controls rely on the Infragistics WebAsyncRefreshPanel (WARP) and ASP.NET UpdatePanel for partial-page (AJAX) postbacks; SAIFAJAXControls.js supplies one client-side helper (SelectAllCheckboxList) for bulk-toggling the grid-customizer column checkbox list.

Architecture diagram¶

The following diagram shows the four component families in this library and their primary collaborators.

flowchart TD
    Page[Hosting ASPX page<br>model / Page.Controls]
    BM[BindingManager]
    ABC[AutoBindControlAncestor family<br>AutoBindTextbox / WebDateTimeEdit / WebMaskEdit]
    BU[BindingUtility<br>reflection get/set/bind]
    HH[Hover-help / hover-panel family<br>HoverHelp / HoverPanel / HoverLabel / HoverPicture]
    CHT[clsHelpText / clsHelpTextCollection<br>SAIF BOF business objects]
    DB[(Oracle*<br>APPLICATION_HELP_MASTER / DETAIL)]
    GC[Grid customization family<br>ModalGridCustomizer / InfragisticsGridCustomizer]
    PREF[clsPreferences<br>per-user preference store]
    GRID[UltraWebGrid]

    Page --> BM
    BM --> ABC
    ABC --> BU
    BU --> Page
    HH --> CHT
    CHT --> DB
    Page --> GC
    GC --> GRID
    GC --> PREF

Sequence diagram¶

The following diagram shows the primary help-text retrieval and rendering sequence used by HoverHelp.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Page as Hosting page
    participant HoverHelp
    participant clsHelpText
    participant DataPortal as BOF data portal
    participant Oracle as APPLICATION_HELP_MASTER/DETAIL (Oracle*)

    Page->>clsHelpText: GetHelpText(dataPortal, appCode, refKeyValue)
    clsHelpText->>DataPortal: RetrieveObject(Criteria)
    DataPortal->>Oracle: RetrieveSQL (bind ApplicationCode, ReferenceKeyValue)
    Oracle-->>DataPortal: joined row (help text + description)
    DataPortal-->>clsHelpText: Fill() populates fields, MarkOld()
    clsHelpText-->>Page: populated read-only instance
    Page->>HoverHelp: Fill(clsHelpText instance)
    HoverHelp-->>Page: renders hover icon + popup text

Design constraints¶

The library targets .NET Framework v4.6.1 (VB.NET, OptionStrict On) and classic ASP.NET WebForms; no .aspx/.ascx markup exists in this project — all controls are rendered entirely from code-behind (CompositeControl-derived classes).
clsHelpText/clsHelpTextCollection are read-only by design: CreateSQL, InsertSQL, UpdateSQL, and DeleteSQL all throw ApplicationException(BOC.Messages.InvalidSQLProperty) — attempting to save/delete an instance fails at the point the base class reads the corresponding SQL property.
Auto-binding validation is a generic UI mechanism only: this library does not itself define what constitutes invalid data — validity is determined entirely by the bound business object's own IDataErrorInfo implementation, which resides outside this project**.
AutoBindControlAncestor.PageErrorLabel depends on a page control named LblErrorMsg being present in the control tree; if absent, error-message assignment silently no-ops (swallowed NotSupportedException)*.
InfragisticsGridCustomizer hard-fails (ApplicationException) at initialization if a configured AlwaysVisible/AlwaysHidden column key does not exist on the target grid, and TargetGrid/ObjectBinder property getters throw if the named control cannot be resolved via Page.FindControl.
Two source files (AutoBindTextboxControl.vb, AutoBindingControl.vb) exist on disk but are excluded from the .vbproj compile list and are therefore not part of the shipped assembly*.
The concrete type and persistence mechanism of clsPreferences is inferred to originate from SAIF.Framework.Preferences based on the referenced assembly name, but no Imports/usage in this project's source directly confirms it**.

Note: Statements marked with * were inferred from code structure, naming conventions, or contextual evidence where direct confirmation was not available in source artifacts. Statements marked with ** could not be confirmed; treat as unknown until verified.

Sources¶

SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103.vbproj
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\SAIFAJAXControlAncestor.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\AutoBindControlAncestor.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\AutoBindTextbox.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\AutoBindWebDateTimeEdit.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\AutoBindWebMaskEdit.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\BindingManager.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\BindingUtility.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\iAutoBindingControl.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\HoverHelp.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\HoverHelpControl.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\HoverLabel.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\HoverPanel.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\HoverPanelControl.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\HoverPicture.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\GridCustomizationPanel.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\InfragisticsGridCustomizer.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\ModalGridCustomizer.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\clsHelpText.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\clsHelpTextCollection.vb
SAIF.Presentation.Web.Controls.AJAX.Infragistics103\SAIFAJAXControls.js