March 31, 1999 - Osmosis Technical Note 4

Subject: AEEA Limitations

When constructing complex Helix® views, are there any limitations?

In most cases, any data that can be displayed on a Helix view can be output to the web. There is one exception however. The Helix AEEA suite can retrieve only one series of data rectangles located outside of a list. Osmosis refers to this series of data rectangles as the ‘outer abaci’ and may be selected in the Output Step. Here are some examples of template construction:

Outer Abaci (one data rectangle); list - OK
Outer Abaci (two or more data rectangles); list - OK
Outer Abaci (one data rectangle); subform list - OK
Outer Abaci (one data rectangle); two or more subform lists - OK
Outer Abaci (one data rectangle); subform list with an outer abaci - the outer abaci associated with the subform list will NOT be output.

You can work around this limitation by using multiple output steps in the Osmosis script. Osmosis will output each step sequentially, building the complete form for the web user.