How to Introduce a Button That Controls All Other Links in a Web Page

[Daniel Gee]

My web page has many nodes. Each of them represents a treeview "expand (i.e., + )" or "collapsed (i.e., -). Therefore, a Collection can be either collapsed or in collapsing state if that Collection is not empty. If users want to collpase a Collection, the application makes a trip to the database to retrieve the elements in that Collection. Each of the node is coded as
shown below (I show only one of the Collection(s) I have and I do not want to repeat all of them).

Now, I am trying to introduce a button that triggers (send a signal to) all those nodes to either expand or not expand. What is the cleverest/cleaninst way to do it?

For each treeview node in my code, when the <logic:equal ....> tag tests the property; for example, 'expandNotifiedAgency' is set to 'true', an action is invoked to retrieve and display the elements in that Collection.

<table align="center" width="99%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td >
<table aligh="center" width="99%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td>
<logic:notEmpty name="ActivityForm"
property="notifiedAgencyCollection">
<bean :D efine id="notifiedAgencyType" value="notifiedAgency" />
<logic:equal name="ActivityForm" property="expandNotifiedAgency"
value="true">
<html:link action="/ntts/rfi/expandCollapseActivityView.do"
paramId="entitySection" paramName="notifiedAgencyType"
styleClass="actionLink">
<img src="../../images/arrow_expanded.gif" border="0" alt="collapsed"> 
<span class="sectionHeader">
<bean:message bundle="rfi" key="activity.category.notifiedagency" />
</span>
</html:link>
</logic:equal>
<logic:equal name="ActivityForm" property="expandNotifiedAgency"
value="false">
<html:link action="/ntts/rfi/expandCollapseActivityView.do"
paramId="entitySection" paramName="notifiedAgencyType"
styleClass="actionLink">
<img src="../../images/arrow_collapsed.gif" border="0" alt="expand"> 
<span class="sectionHeader">
<bean:message bundle="rfi" key="activity.category.notifiedagency" />
</span>
</html:link>
</logic:equal>
<span> [<bean:size id="notifiedAgencyCollectionSize" name="ActivityForm" property="notifiedAgencyCollection"/><bean:write name="notifiedAgencyCollectionSize"/>]</span>
</logic:notEmpty>
<logic:empty name="ActivityForm"
property="notifiedAgencyCollection">
      <span class="sectionHeader"><bean:message bundle="rfi" key="activity.category.notifiedagency" /></span>
</logic:empty>
</td>
<td align="right">
<input type="submit" 
                                name="method"
                            value="<bean:message bundle="rfi" key="activity.button.add.notifiedagency" />" 
                            class="buttonToLink"/>
</td>
</tr>
<logic:equal name="ActivityForm" property="expandNotifiedAgency"
value="true">
<logic:notEmpty name="ActivityForm" property="notifiedAgencyCollection">
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><html:img src="images/border.gif" height="1"
width="100%" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0"
cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td class="headerLeft"><span class="dataHeader">Agency</span></td>
<td class="actionHeader" align="center"><span class="dataHeader">Action</span></td>
</tr>
<bean :D efine id="contentCell" value="contentCell1" />
<logic:iterate id="anAgency" name="ActivityForm"
property="notifiedAgencyCollection"
type="gov.cbp.ace.st.tf.web.ntts.form.ActivityNotifiedAgencyForm">
<tr>
<td class="<bean:write name="contentCell"/>"><span
class="dataContent"><ecustoms:refDataTranslator
dataType="<%=ReferenceDataTranslatorTag.AGENCY%>"
inputData="<%=anAgency.getAgencyIndicator()%>" /></span></td>
<td class="<bean:write name="contentCell"/>">
<span class="dataContent"><html:link
action="/ntts/rfi/editNotifiedAgency.do"
paramId="agencyId" paramName="anAgency"
paramProperty="agencyIndicator">
[Edit]</html:link></span>
</td>
</tr>
<c:choose>
<c:when test="${contentCell == 'contentCell2'}">
<c:set var="contentCell" value="contentCell1" />
</c:when>
<c :o therwise>
<c:set var="contentCell" value="contentCell2" />
</c :o therwise>
</c:choose>
</logic:iterate>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</logic:notEmpty>
</logic:equal>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
 

Thanks for your guidance.
[ March 13, 2006: Message edited by: Daniel Gee ]