Due to legal requirements, delivery notes and invoices have a field 'Printed' that determines when the document is printed whether the word 'original' or 'copy' should appear in the output. Displaying the document on the screen always results in 'copy'. A client wanted a similar mechanism but for customer orders - they want to know if the order has been printed at any stage.
In an HTML document, the first three stages are usually INPUT, HTMLCURSOR and SQLI. In that third stage, the code for determing which text should be added ('original'/'copy') can be seen, but there is nothing in the document that says whether the document is being printed or displayed. Looking though the SDK, there's nothing explicit on this topic, although there is a hint.
Saving a Certified Copy when Printing a Document
You can define a procedure so that, when the document is printed or sent by e-mail (:SENDOPTION = 'PRINT' or 'AMAIL'), a certified copy is saved that can be printed later (using the Create Certified Copy program).
In order to save a copy:
- Include an HTMLEXTFILES step which goes over the attached files.
- In the first INPUT step, set the :HTMLPRINTORIG variable to 1.
- In the SQLI step after the HTMLCURSOR step, set the :SAVECOPY variable to 1.
These variables are updated during runtime, so that if several documents are being printed together, the variables will be set for each individual document, depending on its status.
So it would seem that the undocumented system variable :SENDOPTION is the key to the client's request. I added a little code to the SQLI stage of the procedure WWWSHOWORDER that would save the value of :SENDOPTION in a table of private constants. From this I was able to ascertain that when printing, the value is 'PRINT' and when displaying on the screen, it's 'DISPLAY'. Presumably when sending email the value is 'AMAIL' and for fax (??) it's probably 'FAX', although I don't need to know this.
For my purposes (or for the client), I have to update the private field 'PRINTED' in the ORDERS table if SENDOPTION is not equal to 'DISPLAY'. I think it better to save a username and date/time than just the fact that the order has been printed, but that's only my opinion.
I can't imagine any further use for this undocumented variable, but I vaguely recall that once I would have liked to have known its value, although for what, I do not remember.
