UI Actions

Audience: Low-code Engineers

Skill Prerequisites: Actions, Tokens, Forms, Listings

The UI Actions change what the user sees on the current page without reloading it. They open and close form, Tabs and listing popups, load forms, switch tabs, show, hide, filter and refresh listings, and let the user pick files or listing rows. The group also has a search indexing action and two actions that run or load your own JavaScript and CSS.

Most of these actions send a small script to the user's browser, so they're only available in Forms and Listings. They aren't available in API endpoints or workflows.

Choosing an action

Action	What it does	Use it to
Open Form Popup And Stop Execution / Open Form Popup And Continue Execution	Opens a Form module from the same page in a popup. The size and title come from the form's settings.	Open an edit form for a record, passing its ID to the form.
Close Form Popup And Stop Execution / Close Form Popup And Continue Execution	Closes the popup of a Form module, from the form inside it or from anywhere on the page.	Add a Cancel button, or close the popup and then refresh a listing.
Initialize Form And Stop Execution / Initialize Form And Continue Execution	Loads a Form module on the page again, in place. Its fields start over and its On Preinit and On Init actions run again.	Load a form set to Manual display only when it's needed, or reset a form after a submit.
Open Tabs Popup And Stop Execution / Open Tabs Popup And Continue Execution	Opens a Tabs module from the same page in a popup. The Tabs module must have Open as modal on.	Open a multi-step wizard in a popup.
Close Tabs Popup And Stop Execution / Close Tabs Popup And Continue Execution	Closes the popup of a Tabs module.	Close a wizard from the Finish or Cancel button of its last tab.
Change Tab And Stop Execution / Change Tab And Continue Execution	Switches a Tabs module on the page to another tab, as if the user clicked it, and can pass values to the forms in it.	Move to the next step of a wizard.
Show Listing And Stop Execution / Show Listing And Continue Execution	Shows a listing set to Manual display, or opens a listing set to In Popup in a popup.	Show search results only after the user clicks Search.
Hide Listing And Stop Execution / Hide Listing And Continue Execution	Hides a Manual listing, or closes the popup of an In Popup listing.	Close a listing popup, or switch between two views of the data.
Refresh Listing	Reloads the data of a listing you pick, keeping its page, search, filters and sorting. The next actions keep running.	Show a new record in a listing right after a form saves it.
Filter Listing	Changes the filters, search, sorting or paging of a listing on the same page, through the page URL.	Build your own search form next to a listing.
Pick Item from Listing	Opens a listing in a popup over a form. When the user clicks a row, its values are copied into form fields. Forms only.	Pick a customer from a searchable listing and fill in their name, email and phone.
Open File Manager	Opens a form's File Manager field in a popup and ends execution. Your JavaScript gets the files the user picked or uploaded.	Let users pick an image from a folder and put its URL in a field.
Execute Javascript Code	Runs JavaScript in the browser from a listing button with Client Button on, without a request to the server.	Copy a row's value or open a print dialog from a listing button, instantly.
Load Static Files	Adds JavaScript and CSS files to the page by URL, from a form's On Page Load event.	Load a charting library or a stylesheet that only one form needs.
Reindex Search Boost Content	Clears a search behavior's index and reads all its content sources again, from an Automation job only. It's an older, simpler version of Index Behavior.	Rebuild an index every night. For new work, prefer Index Behavior.

Stop or continue?

Many actions come in pairs. Both versions do the same thing. They differ in what happens next:

• And Stop Execution. No further actions in the list run, unless the action's condition is false. Use it as the last action, or give it a condition to decide when it runs. See Common Parameters.
• And Continue Execution. The instruction is sent to the browser right away, and the server keeps running the next actions. The user sees the popup, tab or listing change while those actions are still working.

When you use a Continue version, keep in mind:

• Later results aren't shown. The change happens before the next actions finish, so it can't show their results. Values passed to a form or tab are the ones known when the action runs.
• Errors after a close. If a later action fails after a popup is closed, the user may not see the error in the form. Close the popup after the actions that can fail.
• Later actions can undo it. A redirect or a page refresh after the action reloads the page.
• Not in every form event. The Continue versions of Change Tab, Close Tabs Popup, Open Tabs Popup and Initialize Form aren't offered in the form's On Page Load, On Preinit and On Init events.

Refresh Listing has no Stop version. It always continues. Open File Manager and Pick Item from Listing always end the action list.

The target must be on the page

The popup, form, tab and listing actions work on modules that are already on the page the user is looking at. Pick the module from the list, or use a token or expression with its module ID. If the module isn't on the page, nothing happens and the error only appears in the browser console. Pick Item from Listing is the exception: its listing can be on any page.

Set the target module up for it:

• Forms opened in a popup or loaded with Initialize Form usually have Display Mode set to Manual, so they stay hidden until the action runs. See Display Mode.
• Listings must have Display Mode set to In Popup or Manual for Show Listing and Hide Listing to do anything. See Display Mode.
• Tabs modules must have Open as modal on to open in a popup. The tab actions are only available when the Tabs module is installed.

Client buttons in Listings

On a listing button with Client Button turned on, only client-side actions run, one after another, in the browser and without a request to the server. Several actions in this group have a client-side version there, with the same parameters and no Stop or Continue: Open Form Popup, Close Form Popup, Initialize Form, Open Tabs Popup, Close Tabs Popup, Change Tab and Refresh Listing. Execute Javascript Code is only available there.

Tokens in client-side actions are replaced when the listing loads, not when the button is clicked. On an item button, the row's values are available. On a root button, only values that don't depend on a row are. See Item Buttons and Root Buttons.

To run browser code from normal buttons or forms, see the Code actions. For other ways to send the user somewhere or show a message, see the Redirect and Message actions. For search indexing, see the Search actions. To build a custom search form that sends the user to the search results page, see the Advanced Search add-on.

Revised 10/02/2026