We have datasets, list, and hard tables exposed through external modules. There is some slightly different behavior on the handling of foreign keys and I'm hoping someone might be able to say something about what behavior we should expect:

when using any of labkey's built-in table types, any lookup is automatically resolved. in a dataregion, the cell holding this value is rendered as a link to the target of the lookup, and labkey usually automatically shows the display field of the lookup target, as opposed to the value stored in that table. When a the values of that lookup is not found in the target table, the cell renders with <> brackets and it filters as though the value is null.

With hard tables, I see differences. Lookups do not seem to automatically render as a link to the lookup target. They do not automatically show the display field from the target table. Instead they tend to show the actual value of the cell. They do render with brackets if the value of the lookup is not found.

Because labkey renders broken lookups with <>, this seems to indicate that labkey is still resolving that lookup on hard tables, even though the rendering is different. The questions I have are:

1. is this difference an expected behavior
2. should i anticipate it staying this way
3. in those cases where we do want to show URLs or show the display field of the lookup, should I manually add URLs or tweak the view accordingly?

none of the above are inherent problems, i'm just trying to make sure i understand what to expect.