Tutorial #2: Capturing the current user

[Jamie]

This tutorial will explain how to capture the current user and add that info to a form. We automatically capture the last modified date, and using this trick we can capture last modified by as well.

1. Let’s start with a simple address book app like the one we created in Tutorial #1.
2. Since this is a simplified scenario, let’s start by adding an attribute called “UpdatedBy” to the Company data model.
   
   
3. Then go to the mobile CreateCompany view and add a TextField. You can search the Widget library for text to find it quickly.
4. Configure the TextField Widget to map to the new attribute, and add a label. You might also want to change the label style (I chose inline). Also take note of the widget ID. Mine is called TextField_0.
   
   
5. Now right-click on the background and select Edit.
   
   
6. Select the Events tab and click Add to add a script on the ViewLoad event. If there’s already a script attached to that event you can typically just click Edit and append the existing script.
7. Now select JavaScript from the Action method menu, and enter the following…

var user = context.getUser();
var appuser = context.getWidget(“TextField_0”);
appuser.setValue(user.name);

9. Now when that page loads, the field with automatically be populated by the current user’s email address.
   
   
10. Note that the field is still editable. To make it read-only you can disable it by double-clicking it and selecting the Disabled option.