The Web View is one of the 12 standard views available in Omniscope. It differs for the other views in that it is not intended to depict all of the data in the data set. Instead, it is intended to broaden the reach of the Omniscope file to other related content and services available on the web.
As with other views, you can add a Web View to the display by switching one or more existing views to be Web Views (by clicking the view name and choosing Web View in the View Chooser) or by adding a new Web View to the display using Add view on the Main Toolbar
You can have any number of Web Views open, with each pointing to a different address (URL) on the web:
The first time you open the Web View, it will show the Omniscope default static page (the Google homepage). "Static" means this view won't update when you filter or navigate in Omniscope. Omniscope Web Views work just like web browsers. You can enter a different address in the address bar, or follow the links on the page displayed to change the current page. You can resize the windows to be quite small. Omniscope can switch the screen display of the web page to a style intended for small screen devices.
If you save the .IOK file and later re-open it, any static Web Views will re-open showing the same page that was showing when you saved the file. There is no such thing as a "home page" with the Omniscope Web View. Instead, Google is the default page if you've never opened a Web View before, and each Web View will re-open as it was saved.
A dynamic Web View is one that is automatically synchronised with the rest of Omniscope. When you select specific data in another Omniscope view, the Web View will reload to show a relevant page as defined by the selected link. You can't enter a different web address into a dynamic Web View. To change a dynamic Web View back to a static one, change Link or Web service to "(none)" in the View Toolbar.
There are two types of dynamic web view: link-based and web service-based. Both are used for showing web pages containing information about a single record (link-based) or groups of records (web-service based). When you highlight a record in Omniscope, an open link-based Web View will update to show the linked page for the highlighted record. If there is no record selected/highlighted in any Omniscope view, link-based dynamic Web Views will remain blank.
In Omniscope, a highlight is set whenever you select a single record, such as a single row in the Table View. In the example below, selecting the record of a specific casualty in Iraq displays a personal memorial page for that soldier in the link-based Web View:
To create a link like this in an Omniscope file, choose Web View> View Toolbar > Link > (Tools)/Add web link. This allows you to define the link and associate that link with that Web View. You can administer all the links in your file from the top-level Settings > Links [1] menu.
It is possible to define much more complex data-driven links. For example, you can use two or more field values as parameters in a link like this one:
http://myIntranetServer/addressBook?firstName=[First Name]&lastName=[Last Name]
where 'First Name, and 'Last Name' are fields in the data set.
Omniscope has a number of preconfigured links built in, which saves you having to figure out the link syntax for common websites offering free web services. See Using Web Services in the Web View [2]
Web views are also used to display the results of dynamic requests for web services. Some free web services, such as YouTube and Google Maps, are already configured. If your file includes a collection of video clip identifiers recognised by YouTube, selecting a clip from your Omniscope 'video jukebox' will play the corresponding clip in a Web View as streamed from YouTube:
You can also add any custom Web Service to your file. As with Links, you must pre-define custom Web Services configurations using the Main Toolbar Settings > Web Services menu, then use the Web View selector drop down to the right of the View Tools drop-down to link that Web View with the selected web service.
Connections to web services that accept a series of inputs (or a table), rather than a single value/text string, are less easy to implement, since they require a specific web server page implementation. Examples of multi-record Web Services already defined in Omniscope include popular mapping services, such as Google Maps.
Multi-record web services links to Omniscope work by submitting an HTTP POST to the web service page containing a series of record IDs. This is equivalent to submitting a form listing all the record IDs. This functionality allows you to program server pages that accept a list of record IDs in an HTTP POST request and provides any further information associated with those records in HTML, in the HTTP response. You can also configure the maximum number of records in a web service post (the default is 100). This allows you to restrict access to the server page to only moderate requests, especially useful if allowing users to retrieve 50,000 price graphs at a time might be undesirable. At present, you can only configure a single-parameter web service post. If you envision a solution that requires a tabular, multi-field post, please contact us.
We provide a simple example 'echo' page which can be used to test your configuration and to understand the results. This is the default page when adding a Web Service. To see the test echo service, go to Settings > Web Services > Add web service and click OK without making any changes to the defaults.
After adding a web service, depending on how it was configured, you may need to select it in the Web View using the Link > Web Service selector to the right of the View Tools drop-down.
Web Views pointing at Web Services rather than links will show all records currently included by your filters. If you then make a data selection in another view (such as the Pie View), the Web View will show only the selected records. When you clear your selection, the Web View will return to showing all the records included by your filters.
To use the Echo test, first filter down to, or select, no more than 100 records using Side Bar filters and/or using Select, Move & Keep power query sequences in other views. Once the selected number of records falls below the threshold, Omniscope creates a form submission with form keys "RECORD0", "RECORD1", "RECORD2" (etc.) and posts the form values to the configured server for the selected Web Service. You will normally see the results of the POST returned in the Web View.
The Web View, like other views, is configurable using Report Pages. You can, for example, create a Report Page with 3 Web Views, and another Report Page with just a Table View and one Web View, then switch between the two. Omniscope supports opening any number of views and managing the positioning of these views through flipping individual panes using the 'flip' icon command on the view divider.
Links:
[1] http://kb.visokio.com/node/344
[2] http://kb.visokio.com/node/260