Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet rock

[josevelez]

I have tried all day to get this to work and always the same result... "Populate Dialog from Tables Action did not run because of an error. Variable for Primary key values not found."

I have a UX with some data bound fields and three embedded grids that get called when I click on a link within another grid. The grids show up fine but for some reason that [use any name you want here] Populate Dialog... feature will not work. The fields on the UX stay blank.

I watched D20 several times but it does not help that they decided to use 'Specify Now' as the primary key source.

Why???? How many people will be hard coding a primary key vs how many need to do this dynamically????? Well, Video D21 answers that with "that's not pretty useful".

So if I do NOT want to use 'Specify Now' and instead want to ReadFromVariable, what variable can I use and how can I set it when calling the UX from another compoent with an onClick event? I've tried page variables and arguments and nothing.

[forskare]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

I watched D20 several times but it does not help that they decided to use 'Specify Now' as the primary key source.

Why???? How many people will be hard coding a primary key vs how many need to do this dynamically????? Well, Video D21 answers that with "that's not pretty useful".

So if I do NOT want to use 'Specify Now' and instead want to ReadFromVariable, what variable can I use and how can I set it when calling the UX from another compoent with an onClick event? I've tried page variables and arguments and nothing.

That, along with the way too many error messages caused me to remove v12. My time is too valuable to try to figure it out. I mentioned to Selwyn that Alpha needs to think about the videos as a user things, not as an Alpha programer thinks. Probably wasn't too happy with me.

[Davidk]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

Jose,

Just to clarify... you have a UX with 3 embedded grids. You call the UX from a grid component. You want the UX to open with data and the key to the UX data is from the current record of the calling grid. Is this right?

[Davidk]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

Not sure about the pet rock simile but...

What you want to do is call a UX Component from a Grid Component and , from that Grid Component, send a variable containing data that will act as a key to get data for the UX Component.

So... you must create a variable in your Grid that will be available in your UX. Since, in your UX, you are working with a Server-side event, that points us in the direction of a Session variable.

Let's say you are using a button, available on each row of your grid to open your UX.

To create a session variable from your Grid, you could use the Client-side event onRowSelect... as follows:

//place this Javascript in your code, and then reference the rowNum variable.
var rowNum = {Grid.Object}._selectedRow;
var userId = {grid.Object}.getValue('G','USER_ID',rowNum);

var addlData = '_currKey='+userId

{grid.Object}.ajaxCallback('G','{Grid.RowNumber}:all','getCurrId','',addlData,{});

This code gets the current row of the grid, then gets the value of the USER_ID field on that row.

Then sets a variable "addlData" with an expression that can be used with an Ajax Callback, for the Additional Data section of the callback.

The Ajax Callback, "getCurrId" gets defined in the Xbasic functions section of the grid...

function getCurrId as c (e as p)
'This function will handle the Ajax callback.

session.myCurrKey = e._currKey

end function

Here, we set a session variable "session.myCurrKey" with the value of "_currKey" that was passed in with the Ajax Callback.

Now we have a session variable.

Back into your UX, set the Primary Key Source to ReadFromVariable and set the variable to session.myCurrKey.

Hope that helps.

David

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

David,

That worked BEAUTIFULLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you SO much!

What I meant by pet rock is that for newbies like me that have no experience with creating session variables like you demonstrated, the 'Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables' is not very helpful. It seems inconsistent that in some situations I can easily open up a grid or UX in the desired fashion just fine but for this specific way I have to struggle to figure it out.

The videos really don't help with examples that even they admit are not very useful. It would have been more appropriate for the video to demonstrate something along like what you did and if not at least explain that this is how is should be done.

When I try to use the 'Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables' builder and I see a dropdown choice that has 'ReadFromVariable' I am expecting to be able to use arguments or page variables as well, but that does not seem to be the case.

Untitled.png

Alpha needs to provide more documentation, better examples, and make more contributions to this forum to help newbs like me. After all, if we are not successful then Alpha will not be because either we will walk away with a sour experience using Alpha and/or dump it altogether and look at alternatives. This experience alone has already got me using a demo for a competing product which I absolute love already. Time will tell.

Thanks again for your help! Very generous of you.

Jose

[Davidk]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

So glad it helped. Alpha Anywhere is amazingly powerful. Once you get the idea of passing around data between Server-side and Client-side then it opens up great possibilities.

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

David,

I've run into a snag. I cannot seem to pull up a different record, the session variable sticks with the original id. How can I get the session variable to change. I thought the onRowSelect would handle that but it does not seem to work.

It still boggles me that I cannot use a page variable. That would have been so much easier.

Any thoughts?

[Davidk]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

Try this...

Instead of...

//place this Javascript in your code, and then reference the rowNum variable.
var rowNum = {Grid.Object}._selectedRow;
var userId = {grid.Object}.getValue('G','USER_ID',rowNum);

use e.rowNumber...

var userId = {grid.Object}.getValue('G','USER_ID',e.rowNumber);

to help get your current value.

I always forget where e.rowNumber is available.

See if that helps.

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

Dave,

No luck.

It always seems to give me the first result from the query. I noticed that from the two different grids I have tried this with, both grids have 10-20 records and the first record is the only one that shows up when I load the UX.

Should it be this difficult to do this???

My pet rock opinion stands on this 'Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables' feature. It would be nice if Alpha come chime in here.

[Davidk]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

I'd have to see your UX and Grids at this point. You say...

both grids have 10-20 records and the first record is the only one that shows up when I load the UX.

When the UX is loaded, are there controls on that UX (not grids) that show the correct records, as passed in from the calling grid?

You have a main grid, which calls a UX and passes a key from the grid into the UX. The UX displays data based on that key from the grid.

Is this working?

From what you wrote I'm a little confused. You say both grids have 10-20 records... but at this point I'm just concerned with the UX showing the correct record based on the main grid row value.

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

David,

Ok I figured one thing I was doing wrong. I did not realize until checking out the Alphapedia page on the {grid.Object}.getValue Method that I needed to capitalize the name and part parameters.

I fixed that. Now what happens is that I pull up the UX for a record it still shows the first record that was in the original grid but when I refresh the page the correct records magically shows up! So it is working but not without refreshing the page. I'm not sure what is going on there.

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

I thought some pics would help clarify..

1.png2.png3.png

[Davidk]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

Yeah, one thing to get used to is treat posted code exactly as posted... except for IDs and variable stuff like that. If it's upper cased then do that, etc.

So... how are you calling your UX. You have your main grid displayed. The Grid onRowSelect event does the Ajax Callback to set the session variable. Then... how does the UX get opened?

Plus... you're running your main grid from a tabbed ui inside a navigation system? Is that right?

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

I decided to not use the tabbed ui... I was having too many problems with page layout components not refreshing.

The main grids are running inside of simple A5 pages. I am clicking a field (the underlined well name) that has the onClick event set to open the UX that is inside an a5 page.

Do these pics help?

1.png2.png

[josevelez]

Re: Populate A Dialog with data from one or more tables .. about as useful as a pet r

It sure would be nice if someone from Alpha could provide a USEFUL example of how to use this feature. Either the component does not work as advertised or the documentation is next to none.