New and Extended CM HTML Tags and Parameters

The basis for the HTML files of the BMC Client Management is standard HTML 4.0. However, for the agent Web interface to run optimally, several standard tags were extended in their functionalities (for example, by adding parameters and new tags). This reference assumes that you are already familiar with standard HTML 4.0.

HTML Tags

The difference between these two groups of tags is that the new BMC Software tags are completely newly created tags, as well as the parameters they use. The Extended Tags are standard HTML 4.0 tags with additional parameters to extend their functionality, which will be explained in detail later in this reference.

In principle, the new and extended tags follow the general rules of standard HTML tags, which have three parts:

• a start tag
• the content
• an end tag

Standard tag syntax

<TAG parameter1=value1, parameter2=value2, ....>Content</TAG>

A tag is special text ("markup") that is delimited by angle brackets ("<" and ">"). An end tag includes a forward slash ("/") after the left angle bracket ("<"). For example, the anchor tag "A" has a start tag, "<A>", and an end tag, "</A>". The start and end tags surround the content of the anchor tag: <A>http://www.metrixsystems.com</A>

Some tags do not have an end tag, and this will be explicitly mentioned in the respective section. Tag names are always case-insensitive, so <setvar>, <Setvar>, and <SETVAR> are all the same.

Chilli and HTML tags

One of the principal functionalities of all BMC Software extended or created tags is the possibility to directly handle Chilli expressions. (Chilli is a programming language created by BMC Software specifically for the purpose of network and systems management. For more information about Chilli, refer to the Chilli Reference guide.)

BMC Client Management tag syntax

<TAG parm1=(Chilli Expression) parm2=....>Text</TAG>

Chilli expressions can be used as values of HTML tag parameters. They are enclosed in parentheses to distinguish them from "normal" parameter values. When the parser finds an opening parenthesis at the beginning of the parameter value, it will evaluate everything in the parentheses as a Chilli expression.

Parameters

To further extend the functionality of standard HTML 4.0 tags, as well as those of the tags newly created by BMC Software, the following parameters were added to the previously mentioned tags:

A tag's parameters define various properties for the tag. For example, the IMG element takes an SRC parameter to provide the location of the image and an ALT parameter to give alternate text for users who disabled image autoloading:

<IMG SRC="bmcsoftwarelogo.png" ALT="BMC Software Logo">

A parameter is included in the start tag only - never the end tag - and takes the form parameter name="parameter-value". The 'name=value' pairs are separated from each other by a space (and no comma). The parameter value is enclosed by single or double quotes if it consists of more than one word. For example, when listing variables: vars='iid, myvar, secondvar'. If the value is a one-word-expression, it does not need to be put in quotes. The parser does not distinguish between single and double quotes, so either of them can be used. If quotes are used when not needed, the parser will ignore them. Parameter names are case-insensitive, but parameter values are case-sensitive.