Once the desired data has been extracted from output files generated by underlying software applications or read from databases and plots have been created using post-processing applications, the next step will be to decide whether to display these results within your EASAP’s graphical user interface (GUI). This decision is usually based on the run or response time of the underlying software applications or processes run by the EASAP. If output is generated relatively quickly, say in less than a few minutes, then it will probably make sense to display results on the EASAP GUI. If the run times are long enough that users will submit their runs, close the EASAP and come back later to look at results, then it may not make sense to display results in the EASAP GUI. In this case, it will often be quicker for them to just look at results in the browser-based reports found in the Results pages. See Building a Report for details on creating these reports. Once you have decided to display results in the EASAP GUI, there are two sets of tasks for you to perform:

1. Create objects to display results data on 'Results' TABBED PANE's
2. Keep results data current or up-to-date using EVENT PROCESSING

These tasks will be described in more detail in the following sections

When creating objects to display results, you should consider creating one or more new TABBED PANE's to separate the results data from the input data. Results should be easy to locate for users. After creating the TABBED PANE's, you will then populate them with other objects that display the results data. All the objects available for displaying results data have already been introduced and described in previous chapters. TABBED PANE and the objects displayed on the Input Region of a TABBED PANE were covered in GUI of EASAPs, while those displayed in the Diagram Region are detailed in Diagramming. The Input Region objects most often used for results display are as follows:

• TEXTAREA
• LABEL
• TABULATED DATA

An example of results being displayed on the Input Region of a TABBED PANE using LABEL and TABULATED DATA shown below.

The Diagram Region objects most often used for results display are as follows:

• 2D GRAPH
• IMAGE

An example of results being displayed on the Diagram Region of a TABBED PANE using a 2D GRAPH is shown below.

Tip: You can use the Enable if: parameter of the TABBED PANE to only enable the tabbed pane when the results data has actually been created, for example by using an IS VALID referencing a results data object in a logical expression.

Now that you have defined how results data is extracted from files or read from databases and then how it is displayed on the EASAP GUI, the final issue for you to sort out is making the results data current or up-to-date by refreshing it at the appropriate time. You can perform the refreshing of the results data automatically using an EVENT PROCESSING. In this case, one of the action objects will always be a MENU ACTION with its Action: parameter set to ‘Refresh’ or a REFRESH OBJECTS ACTION with its Objects: parameter set to the objects holding the data to be refreshed. The timing of the refresh is determined by the selection of Child EVENT's to the Parent EVENT PROCESSING→EVENT container . The particular EVENT to use depends on the method used to generate the results data. The table below provides a listing of different scenarios and the EVENT's required for each.

There are several important issues that you should consider before selecting an event object to trigger the refresh MENU ACTION or REFRESH OBJECTS, and these are:

• The VALUE CHANGED EVENT can make the data refresh frequently and produces a more “automatic” EASAP. However, with this method, it is not always obvious to users that data is being updated and it should be avoided if the refresh times exceed 1 or 2 seconds.

• A BUTTON PRESSED EVENT is more explicit. It is used in conjunction with a BUTTON with a Label: that makes it obvious to a user that data will be updated when pressed.

• For results data read from output files of underlying software applications, it is often a good idea to use the RESULTS COMPLETED event object under the same EVENT object to trigger the refresh action. A RESULTS COMPLETED provides the benefit of updating the data automatically when a run completes.