Generic object definition

Overview

The engine API uses generic objects. The main concept is that a method points out to a JSON object that is generic and that has a hierarchical structure.

A generic object:

• Can be a sheet, a story, a list object, a hypercube, a slide, a bookmark, a dimension, a measure or a pointer to another generic object.
• Is hierarchical, meaning that it contains the definition of all its children and grandchildren.
• Can be the concatenation of several generic objects. For example, a generic object could be both a list object and a chart. In that case, it would contain the definition of a list object and the definition of a chart.
• A generic object can get any type. This implies that the engine does not care about the type of any object.
• Dynamic properties can be added to a generic object and these properties are persisted. For more information on dynamic properties, see Properties that can be set.

List object

Visualization that contains one dimension. When getting the layout of a list object, all values are rendered. If some selections are applied, selected values are displayed along with the excluded and optional values.

Example of use:

Filter panes are the concatenation of several list objects.

Hypercube

An hypercube is a multi-dimensional visualization of one or several dimensions. It can contain both dimensions and measures. If selections are applied, only the selected values are calculated. A hypercube is an inference and aggregation interface. The results from the aggregation and the inference depend on the dimensions and measures contained in the hypercube.

Example of use:

Tables, charts, straight tables.

Properties

This part of the help describes the properties that:

• Can be rendered for a generic object
• Can be set for a generic object