Dynamic Ribbon Button Drop-Down Menu

• Monday, May 14, 2012 3:24 PM

   

   
  

  0

  Hello All!

  First off, let me state that I’m very new to Dynamics so please forgive me for any ignorance. J
  Here is my dilemma. I’m trying to create a ribbon button which can dynamically generate the elements of a drop-down menu. I’ve found an article which goes over the process of generating the elements of such a menu on the fly, but it is mostly just a proof of concept.

  For instance, the javascript function that the article uses to populate the menu is not very useful, seeing as a static list could achieve the same effect. Here is the example population function.

  function DynamicMenu(CommandProperties) {
      ///<summary>Dynamically generate menu items based on context</summary>
      /// <param name="CommandProperties">
      ///    Command properties crm parameter sent from the ribbon.  object used to inject the Menu XML
      /// </param>
      var menuXml = '<Menu Id="Sample.DynamicMenu">' +
                      '<MenuSection Id="Sample.Dynamic.MenuSection" Sequence="10">' +
                          '<Controls Id="Sample.Dynamic.Controls">' +
                              '<Button Id="Sample.account.form.Controls.Button.FirstButton"' +
                                      ' Command="Sample.SearchCommand"' +
                                      ' LabelText="First Button"' +
                                      ' ToolTipTitle="First Button"' +
                                      ' ToolTipDescription="The first button"' +
                                      ' TemplateAlias="isv"' +
                                      ' Sequence="20" />' +                                  
                          '</Controls>' +
                      '</MenuSection>' +
                  '</Menu>';
      CommandProperties.PopulationXML = menuXml;
  }

  However, I would like to use this same concept to populate a list based off of data that has been stored in dynamics. For example, in our current configuration we have an entity called “Teams”. Currently, these teams can have tasks assigned to them through a dialog in a different entity ("Cases") which queries for teams that are assignable then populates a list with the results. What I would like to do is skip the dialog entirely and populate a ribbon button’s drop-down menu with assignable teams that have been found through a query.

  I feel that the limiting factor in this issue is JavaScript and the information that it is given access to. Ideally I would like to do a query from a custom populate script which performs the query and builds the menu, but I’m not sure that that is possible. I was looking into the following function, but I’m unsure as to what information you can actually glean from it.

  Thank you, any comments or suggestions will be appreciated!

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