XE.com - Customizing the Personal Currency Assistant (tm)

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/all/20050217024116/http://www.xe.com:80/pca/customize.htm

xe.com Customizing the Personal Currency Assistant™
http://www.xe.com/pca/customize.htm

Links

XE.com Home | Currency Services Site Map

For information on advertising on this page, click here.

How to Customize the Personal Currency Assistant™

The Personal Currency Assistant easy to customize, primarily because our computers do the work, serving up both the input and the output pages. All you have to do is code your page to call the service properly.

However, this page is intended for people with at least a basic understanding of basic HTML, since it involves passing HTTP arguments in the creation of links.

Passing Variables to the Personal Currency Assistant™

Automatically Filling In the Amount and Currencies

In many situations, it is desirable to automatically fill in the amount and/or currencies in the Personal Currency Assistant™. This makes it faster and easier for customers to use, and cuts down on input errors.

For example, the webmaster of a U.S. website might want to automatically pass a "From" currency of US Dollars, since that is the sale currency of their goods. Additionally, that same webmaster might want to also automatically pass the Amount field so that it shows a single price or the total of a shopping basket.

Important: These instructions should be pretty straightforward to people familiar with HTML and forms. If you need assistance, please use the Internet as your support resource. We regret that we cannot guarantee technical support for a free service whose primary components are off of our server and outside of our control.

Syntax

The PCA is customized by calling a the special PCA launch program with URL variables. The first variable is preceded by a question mark (?), and all subsequent variables (if used) are preceded by an ampersand (&). The six variables that can be passed are:

To suggest an amount, use:	`AmountSet=value`
To hardwire an amount, use:	`Amount=value`
To suggest the "from" currency, use:	`FromSelect=value`
To hardwire the "from" currency, use:	`From=value`
To suggest the "to" currency, use:	`ToSelect=value`
To hardwire the "to" currency, use:	`To=value`

Note that you cannot suggest and hardwire values for the same property. For example, Amount and AmountSet are mutually exclusive.

Actual Working Examples of How to Do It

Here are some examples of these features in action, along with the code that was used to generate them.

Example 1: Hard-Wired Values, Part 1
You can specify "hard-wired" values that the user cannot override. In this example, the "From" currency has been "hard wired" to US Dollars. The Amount box and "To" currency dropdown are unaffected.

HTML Code:
http://www.xe.com/pca/launch.cgi?From=USD

Result: (Try it out!)
Click here
Example 2: Hard-Wired Values, Part 2
You can specify as many or as few "hard-wired" values as your wish. In this example, the The Amount box has been hard-wired to 100, the "From" currency has been hard-wired to Canada Dollars, and the "To" currency has been hard-wired to US Dollars. The usefulness of such a converter is questionable, as all the user is permitted to do is push the "GO" button, but it is nice to know that you can do it if you want to.

HTML Code:
http://www.xe.com/pca/launch.cgi?Amount=100&From;=USD&To;=CAD

Result: (Try it out!)
Click here
Example 3: Suggested Values
You can specify "suggested" values that allow you to pass "staring values" that the user can change if they wish. In this example, the Amount box has a preset value of 54.30, but it may be changed by the user. Likewise, the "From" currency is only has been suggested as Thai Baht, and the "To" currency has been suggested as New Zealand Dollars. However, the user may override these default choices if they wish.

HTML Code:
http://www.xe.com/pca/launch.cgi?AmountSet=54.30&FromSelect;=THB&ToSelect;=NZD

Result: (Try it out!)
Click here
Example 4: Hard-Wired and Suggested Values
You can mix and match combinations of the above methods. In this example, the Amount box is hardwired to 12.00, the "From" currency is hardwired to US Dollars, and the "To" currency has been suggested as Canada Dollars, but may be changed.

Something like this might be useful to a web retailer to allow the users to quickly calculate a set price (in this case, 12.00 US Dollars) in their home currency.

HTML Code:
http://www.xe.com/pca/launch.cgi?Amount=12&From;=USD&ToSelect;=CAD

Result: (Try it out!)
Click here

TOP

Jan	FEB	Mar
	17
2004	2005	2006