Skip to main content
Light Dark System

Ai

<et2-ai> | Et2Ai
Since 23.1

AI Assistant widget to process content of slotted elements

The widget provides an interface to an AI assistant that can process the content of its slotted element. It presents a dropdown menu with various prompts (e.g., summarize, fix grammar) and displays the result in a card for review before applying it back to the target widget.

Examples

Single Target (Default)

By default, the widget processes the first element placed in its default slot.

<et2-ai>
<et2-textbox value="This is some text that needs to be more formal."></et2-textbox>
</et2-ai>

Multiple Elements (Nested Target)

If you want to process multiple fields together, or if your target is inside a container like Et2Box, the widget will attempt to extract values from the container using standard eTemplate2 methods.

<et2-ai>
    <et2-vbox>
        <et2-textbox label="Job" id="job_name" value="Do the thing with the thing"></et2-textbox>
        <et2-textarea label="Details" id="body" value="Don't forget the meeting tomorrow at 10 AM."></et2-textarea>
    </et2-box>
</et2-ai>

Custom Prompt Menu

By default, the widget displays the prompts available to the current user and app from the server-side AI Tools configuration. You can override that list for a specific Et2Ai instance to select, relabel, group, or configure how registered prompts are applied. This does not define new prompt text in the browser: every prompt ID must exist in the server-side AI Tools prompt configuration.

Each prompt can define an actions array. An action can specify a target (where the result goes) and a mode (replace, append, or prepend).

<et2-ai id="custom-ai">
<et2-textarea id="my-target" value="Original content. "></et2-textarea>
</et2-ai>
<et2-textarea id="review-copy" label="Review copy"></et2-textarea>
<script>
    const aiWidget = document.getElementById('custom-ai');
    aiWidget.prompts = [
        {
            id: "aiassist.translate-de", 
            label: "Translate to German",
            actions: [{ target: "#my-target", mode: "replace" }]
        },
        {
            // This ID must be configured in AI Tools first
            id: "custom.expand",
            label: "Add more detail",
            actions: [
                { label: "Append", target: "#my-target", mode: "append" },
                {
                    label: "Send for review",
                    handler: function(result) {
                        document.getElementById("review-copy").set_value(result);
                        // Custom handlers run with the Et2Ai element as `this`
                        this.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent("review-copy-ready", {
                            detail: { result },
                            bubbles: true,
                            composed: true
                        }));
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    ];
</script>

An action with a handler receives the raw AI result as its only argument. The handler runs with the Et2Ai element as this and is responsible for applying or forwarding the result; target and mode are not used for that action.

Using Events

You can listen for the et2-ai-apply event to inspect the prompt, result, and resolved target before the action runs. Change event.detail.result to transform the value passed to the built-in action or custom handler. Call preventDefault() to cancel the action entirely.

<et2-ai id="event-demo">
    <et2-textarea value="This text will be intercepted."></et2-textarea>
</et2-ai>

<script>
    const eventAi = document.getElementById('event-demo');
    eventAi.addEventListener('et2-ai-apply', (e) => {
        // e.detail.result contains the AI output
        // e.detail.target contains the element where it will be applied

        if (confirm("Add a signature to the result?")) {
            e.detail.result += "\n\nGenerated by AI Assistant";
        }

        if (!confirm("Apply this result?")) {
            e.preventDefault();
        }
    });
</script>

Slots

Name Description
(default) The default slot where the target widget (e.g. et2-textarea, et2-vbox, iframe) is placed.
trigger Custom trigger element for the AI menu. Defaults to an AI assistant icon button.
actions Additional actions to be shown in the response header

Learn more about using slots.

Inherited properties (18)

Et2Widget

Name Description
accesskey Accesskey provides a hint for generating a keyboard shortcut for the current element. The attribute value must consist of a single printable character.
actions Set Actions on the widget Each action is defined as an object: move: { type: “drop”, acceptedTypes: “mail”, icon: “move”, caption: “Move to” onExecute: javascript:mail_move” } This will turn the widget into a drop target for “mail” drag types. When “mail” drag types are dropped, the global function mail_move(egwAction action, egwActionObject sender) will be called. The ID of the dragged “mail” will be in sender.id, some information about the sender will be in sender.context. The etemplate2 widget involved can typically be found in action.parent.data.widget, so your handler can operate in the widget context easily. The location varies depending on your action though. It might be action.parent.parent.data.widget To customise how the actions are handled for a particular widget, override _link_actions(). It handles the more widget-specific parts.
align Used by Et2Box to determine alignment. Allowed values are left, right
class CSS Class. This class is applied to the outside, on the web component itself. Due to how WebComponents work, this might not change anything inside the component.
data Set the dataset from a CSV
deferredProperties Any attribute that refers to row content cannot be resolved immediately, but some like booleans cannot stay a string because it’s a boolean attribute. We store them for later, and parse when they’re fully in their row. If you are creating a widget that can go in a nextmatch row, and it has boolean attributes that can change for each row, add those attributes into deferredProperties
disabled Defines whether this widget is visibly disabled. The widget is still visible, but clearly cannot be interacted with. Widgets disabled in the template will not return a value to the application code, even if re-enabled via javascript before submitting. To allow a disabled widget to be re-enabled and return a value, disable via javascript in the app’s et2_ready() instead of an attribute in the template file.
dom_id Get the actual DOM ID, which has been prefixed to make sure it’s unique.
hidden The widget is not visible. As far as the user is concerned, the widget does not exist. Widgets hidden with an attribute in the template may not be created in the DOM, and will not return a value. Widgets can be hidden after creation, and they may return a value if hidden this way.
id Get the ID of the widget
label The label of the widget This is usually displayed in some way. It’s also important for accessability. This is defined in the parent somewhere, and re-defining it causes labels to disappear
noLang Disable any translations for the widget
parentId Parent is different than what is specified in the template / hierarchy. Widget ID of another node to insert this node into instead of the normal location
statustext Tooltip which is shown for this element on hover
styles WebComponent *
options Get property-values as object
supportedWidgetClasses et2_widget compatability

LitElement

Name Description
updateComplete A read-only promise that resolves when the component has finished updating.

Events

Name React Event Description Event Detail
et2-ai-start Emitted when an AI process begins. CustomEvent
et2-ai-success Emitted when the AI process completes successfully. CustomEvent
et2-ai-error Emitted when the AI process fails. CustomEvent
et2-ai-stop EVENT NEEDS A DESCRIPTION CustomEvent
et2-ai-apply Emitted when the user clicks “Apply” to insert the result into the target. -

Learn more about events.

Inherited methods (21)

Et2Widget

Name Description
checkCreateNamespace() Checks whether a namespace exists for this element in the content array. If yes, an own perspective of the content array is created. If not, the parent content manager is used. Constructor attributes are passed in case a child needs to make decisions
clone() Creates a copy of this widget.
createElementFromNode() Create a et2_widget from an XML node. First the type and attributes are read from the node. Then the readonly & modifications arrays are checked for changes specific to the loaded data. Then the appropriate constructor is called. After the constructor returns, the widget has a chance to further initialize itself from the XML node when the widget’s loadFromXML() method is called with the node.
getArrayMgr() Returns the array manager object for the given part
getArrayMgrs() Returns an associative array containing the top-most array managers.
getChildren() Get child widgets Use .children to get web component children
getInstanceManager() Returns the instance manager
getPath() Returns the path into the data array. By default, array manager takes care of this, but some extensions need to override this
getRoot() Returns the base widget Usually this is the same as getInstanceManager().widgetContainer
loadFromXML() Loads the widget tree from an XML node
parseXMLAttrs() The parseXMLAttrs function takes an XML DOM attributes object and adds the given attributes to the _target associative array. This function also parses the legacyOptions. N.B. This is only used for legacy widgets. WebComponents use transformAttributes() and do their own handling of attributes.
set_label() NOT the setter, since we cannot add to the DOM before connectedCallback() TODO: This is not best practice. Should just set property, DOM modification should be done in render https://lit-element.polymer-project.org/guide/templates#design-a-performant-template
setArrayMgr() Sets the array manager for the given part
setArrayMgrs() Sets all array manager objects - this function can be used to set the root array managers of the container object.
setInstanceManager() Set the instance manager Normally this is not needed as it’s set on the top-level container, and we just return that reference
transformAttributes() Etemplate loading from template
_handleClick() Click handler calling custom handler set via onclick attribute to this.onclick
destroy() et2_widget compatability
set_class() Set the widget class
set_disabled() Wrapper on this.disabled because legacy had it.
set_statustext() supports legacy set_statustext

Custom Properties

Name Description Default
--max-result-height Automatically calculated based on the slotted element’s height to ensure the result card fits.

Learn more about customizing CSS custom properties.

Parts

Name Description
base The component’s internal wrapper.
result The sl-card containing the AI result or loader.
loader Specific part for the result card when in loading state.
spinner The loading spinner.
result-content The container for the returned AI text/HTML.
markdown The wrapper around markdown-rendered result content.
apply-button The button used to apply the result.
dropdown The Shoelace dropdown containing prompts.
menu The menu inside the dropdown.
menu-item Individual prompt items in the menu.
error The sl-alert shown on failure.

Learn more about customizing CSS parts.