EGroupware
Examples
Single Target (Default)
Multiple Elements (Nested Target)
Custom Prompt Menu
Using Events
Slots
Properties
LitElement
Events
Custom Properties
Parts

Ai

<et2-ai> | Et2Ai

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

None of the examples will work here in the docs as the AI agent cannot be accessed.

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>

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>

Administrators create or edit custom prompt text in the AI Tools prompt configuration. Setting prompts here only changes the menu and response actions for this widget instance.

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.

Properties

Name	Description	Reflects	Type	Default
`recordApp` `record-app`	Record the content belongs to, for {{placeholders}} in the prompt text (filled server-side by the app’s merge class, same placeholders as document merge). Default: the app of the template and the id found in its content, see _getRecord()		`string`	`""`

Learn more about attributes and properties.

Inherited properties (21)

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.
`full`	Take every column of a layout, the same as `span="all"`. Boolean rather than a bare marker so it can be driven from content the way the rest of the template can - `full="@is_wide"` resolves through the array manager like any other boolean attribute. That does mean it needs a value: write `full="true"`, since an empty `full=""` resolves to false and removes the attribute again. Reflects for the same reason `grow` does.
`grow`	How much of a layout’s leftover space this widget should take. Only means anything inside a container that has a `layout` (see Et2LayoutController): a bare `grow` or `grow="1"` takes an equal share of whatever the non-growing children left over, `grow="2"` takes twice what a `grow="1"` sibling does. It has to reflect. The layout stylesheet matches the `[grow]` attribute - CSS cannot see a property - and transformAttributes() only calls setAttribute() for an attribute the element already carries or a property declared as reflecting. Widgets built from a .xet are created with document.createElement() and handed their attributes as an object, so they carry none at that point: without this declaration `grow="1"` lands as an inert JS property and nothing in the layout ever matches it.
`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
`span`	How many of a layout’s columns this widget should take. `span="all"` is every column wherever the widget landed, `span="end"` / `span="*"` is from its own column to the end of its line. Only means anything inside a container that has a `layout`, and only for the column layouts - `stack` gives every child the full width anyway. The same name is also read straight off the XML node by the legacy `<grid>` widget, for the unrelated job of counting table cells to merge; that path never looks at the widget, so declaring it here does not disturb it. Reflecting it does mean a legacy grid’s `span="all"` cells now carry the attribute too, which matches nothing outside a layout. Reflects for the same reason `grow` does.
`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	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`	Missing 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. dropdown, menu and menu-item are not reachable when the dropdown has moved into the target’s field controls (et2-textarea, et2-htmlarea in ascii mode).
`error`	The sl-alert shown on failure.

Learn more about customizing CSS parts.

Examples

Single Target (Default)

Multiple Elements (Nested Target)

Custom Prompt Menu

Using Events

Slots

Properties

Et2Widget

LitElement

Events

Et2Widget

Custom Properties

Parts