How to access an External through an Ajax call

Hi there. How would you invoke the method defined in you External component through Ajax?

Currently, I have defined it in the ContentXML section of the component --

[External] ... [Object Scope="local"]wvo.cms.component.foundation.external.service.EmailTemplateService[/Object] [Method]showEmailServiceResponse[/Method] [/External]

So when I add this component in a page, the method in my external component is invoked when the page is rendered.

I'd like to know if there's a way to call the method using Ajax *after* the page is rendered.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

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Rick Poulin

I haven't used the OOTB AJAXy components, but what I have done is this: Create a page of type XML, that has a single component that calls the external (which probably reads request parameters from the context), and then use XSL in the component to do an <xsl:copy-of select="/relevant/piece/of/response" />. Your AJAX call would then call that .page file as needed.

Again, depending on what you're doing, there might be an OOTB component that accomplishes this in an easier way.

Rick Poulin

The $AJAX_URL page token seems to talk about allowing access to an external specified within the same page. Presumably, this would be used as the "action" parameter in a form tag, and you'd use the same page to render both the form and the results.

SP Dev Guide:

$AJAX_URL - Used by components to call into the external contained by that component and return a document. For examples of this token, see the AJAX based components. Replaces the URL with Ajax URL prefix (no parameter).

Haven't used that one myself yet though.