Autopopulating fields in a form built in UI Pages

[yundlu316]

Hi, I'm creating a form in a UI Page and want to pre-populate some fields from sys_user.   The issue I run into is this error message: "The value of attribute "value" associated with an element type "input" must not contain the '<' character."

I've used the following script to pull the first_name field from sys_user:

<script>

<g:evaluate var="jvar_user_name">  

var gr = new GlideRecord('sys_user');  

gr.get('sys_id', gs.getUserID());  

gr.first_name.getHTMLValue();  

</g:evaluate>

</script>

Here's my HTML:

<table>

  <tr>

      <td><input type="text" id="first_name" name ="firstname" value="<g:no_escape>${jvar_user_name}</g:no_escape>"></input></td>

</tr>

</table>

Is there an alternate syntax to do this?

[Stephen W_ · Accepted solution]

Why are you attempting to add "<g:no_escape>" within the value?  

Remove that tag, as there should be no need for that for anything you put into a text field.

If you absolutely need to add XML/HTML, consider using the innerHTML instead of value.

[yundlu316]

Hey Stephen, I've used "<g:no_escape>" in my CMS and without it, the values won't show up.   For instance, I've coded this in a Dynamic block:

<h1>Welcome to the team, <g:no_escape>${jvar_user_name}</g:no_escape> <g:no_escape>${jvar_user_lastname}</g:no_escape>!</h1>    

Without "<g:no_escape>", the user's First and Last name do not show up.

[Stephen W_]

Ahh, well in your previous scenario(akin to innerHTML) you also could have also solved it by wrapping the entire value,
<h1><g:no_escape>${"Welcome to the team, "+ jvar_user_name+ ".. "}</g:no_escape></h1> (not saying one is better than the other, just illustrating the behavior)

It's going to be a lot more tolerant of reserved characters in innerHTML than it will in named attribute values.

In the case of value="..", it's going to resolve your phase 1 value before the browser evaluates the HTML.   So while it doesn't like your tag within the value, you're ok because it's also unnecessary.

The browser won't see:
<input type="text" id="first_name" name ="firstname" value="${jvar_user_name}"></input>
it will see:

<input type="text" id="first_name" name ="firstname" value="Frank"></input>

The jelly editor syntax checker isn't perfect, it will incorrectly define some things as errors.   Especially when setting element attributes.

[yundlu316]

Hi Stephen, ok I got it to work.   I moved the following code outside of <script>, then I deleted <g:evaluate> from the HTML and it now works.   Thanks!

<g:evaluate var="jvar_user_name">

var gr = new GlideRecord('sys_user');

gr.get('sys_id', gs.getUserID());

gr.first_name.getHTMLValue();

</g:evaluate>