DesignBais Tip – The Art of Indirection

DesignBais v4.1 has a new concept called an Entity which allows us to describe conditions which can be applied to restrict users or groups of users from seeing or updating specific data. Once again, indirection plays a part. We don’t secure the data or put security into forms, we create an Entity which is automatically applied to all forms except those that are specifically excluded. To use an entity, first we describe the entity in the Entity Definition form (all of this is new in the v4 developer menu). Then we go to Entity Security to explicitly define which data can or cannot be seen by specified users or groups. Now, wherever this data is available to the user(s) indicated, the security will be applied. I’ll provide more info on v4 in upcoming articles.

I’ve been sitting on this article for several days now, not posting because I’m certain I’m forgetting about some major and important example of indirection. I think the point has been made though and no more examples are really required. Please feel free to comment on this blog entry with your own example. The more familiar you become with the toolkit, the more natural this indirect thinking will be. If you can’t figure out how to do something directly, (you can’t find the button on the form designer to do something specific, etc), don’t hesitate to ask questions in the DesignBais forum. The answer might not be obvious at first but after someone describes how to do something, sometimes it seems like it would be weird if it worked any other way. And just remember the line – there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Here kitty kitty kitty…