MoversSuite provides a customizable drop-down menu to access third party applications directly from the main toolbar.  The menu is based on configuration settings made to an XML file that is rendered when the MoversSuite application is launched.  The Third Party Applications will contain program directives set forth in the configuration file.

 

Any executable program file can be evoked through the Third Party Application menu.  All that is required to enable this functionality is to have a folder titled ThirdParty existing in the installation folder of the MoversSuite application which contains a file titled config.xml providing the menu options and program calls to third party applications.

 

Figure 15: ThirdParty folder

 

The config.xml file is illustrated in the example below.

 

Figure 16: Sample config.xml file

 

The config.xml file contains a MenuItems property that is comprised of individual MenuItem properties (no letter “s”).  Each MenuItem property represents a separate option in the Third Party Applications menu.  Within each of the MenuItem properties are the two following elements:

 

MenuItem Elements	Description
MenuName	This variable defines the text for the option within the Third Party Applications menu.
ApplicationName	The contents of this variable are executed by the MoversSuite application.  This line will typically list the program that is executed along with any run-time arguments needed by the program.  The path of the program must be fully qualified, i.e. must point to the exact program file location. MoversSuite provides two additional parameters automatically passed to a program: A “-o” (dash followed by the letter “o”) passes the primary key for the order last accessed in MoversSuite and “-u” (dash followed by the letter “u”) passes the user ID for the person logged into MoversSuite.   For example, when the application is executed, MoversSuite will automatically include the order primary key and user identification number similar to the following: application.exe -o 1234 –u 39 Note:  The order primary key is stored as the PriKey field within the Orders table and the user identification number corresponds to the UserAccessPriKey from the UserAccess table in the MoversSuite database.

 

Note:  The config.xml file references config.xsd which is a schema file that provides information on the type of elements needed by the config.xml file.  Since the elements defined in config.xml are all default types for XML, the config.xsd is not required.