BDN - Banner Developer Network

I haven't specifically worked on the admissions application, but have worked on Student and Finance ssb pages, so my comments are specific to SSB programming in general.

You didn't mention what your background is in, programming or otherwise, so I hope you don't find this too technical or not technical enough.

If you've done pl/sql packaging programming then, you'll find working with SSB very natural. An SSB website is nothing more than a bunch of pl/sql procedures, that output html, linked together.

Digging into the code is very easy. Look at the url of the page you want to modify. It will look like: http://ssb.univofwhatever.edu/someSortOfIdentifier/packagename.procedurename?parameterList" Open up your favorite pl/sql editor and find the referenced packagename and then search through the code for the reference procedure name. Then start tracing through the code. Now it is very possible that the actual procedure generating the html that you are seeing is actually in another procedure, and maybe even another package. The SSB code base is notorious for bouncing between procedures while producing the html.

As far as swapping the text areas for dropdowns, it shouldn't be too difficult. Most of the html controls are built not by coding actual html, but by calling a function or procedure that actually outputs it. So in most cases you can swap the text box api call to a call of the dropdown start procedure, a call for each option in the dropdown, and then a call to close the dropdown. The harder part will be if you need to populate the dropdowns from a list in the the database. Then you'll need to open a cursor and iterate though the items in the list calling the the "build a dropdown item" procedure.

Here's a big gotcha: If you had a new procedure/page to the process, setting it up in WebTailor can be a bit tricky. If it isn't done right, you'll get a 404-Page Not Found error. You also get 404 errors if the code throws and unhandled exception. I try to wrap my "main" procedure with a procedure wide exception hander, for those just in case "I messed my code up some where and I'll be darned if I can find it" errors.

Don't hesitate to send me a message if you need more guidence.