Export to Excel problem

[Pat Bremkamp]

I have a couple grids that have the "Export to Excel" property checked and it puts an Excel icon in the toolbar. Clicking that icon causes the grid to pause with the "Waiting for my server name" message to appear. After waht seems like an appropriate amount of time the message disappears, but nothing further happens. No open or save dialog. No error message. No Excel file. Worked perfectly in V11. Not in V12.

Question...does that still work in AA?

What is the alternative...do I have to create a Layout table report then do an export out of there? That's certainly a lot more work than checking the box!

If it is working, where does it go?

[Pat Bremkamp]

Re: Export to Excel problem

Found an error message in the error log:
(Internal Server Error: C:\A5V12\A5Webroot\__A5FileDownload.a5w) Script Error: Error:The Session_Folder property is no longer supported. Use Session.SaveDataAsFile() to safely store file-based data in the Session instead of attempting to write directly to disk. See http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/Storin...n+Sessions+V11 for additional information.
- session.session_folder subelement not found.

Trouble is, I don't have access to that code to fix it!

[Clipper87]

Re: Export to Excel problem

Pat,

The import from excel had exactly the same problem; it was a bug (that is Selwyn did not update the code to be v12 compliant) Send in a bug report to Selwyn

[Pat Bremkamp]

Re: Export to Excel problem

I did. He said there was absolutely no problem. So, I guess I'll scrap the grids and recreate them and hope that solves it. I'll post my results.

[Pat Bremkamp]

Re: Export to Excel problem

Well I rebuilt one of my grids from scratch in V12, and it didn't work. Now I think that the problem must be the design of the grid. I have some hidden fields, some freeform fields, some show/hides. So I think I need to create a plain vanilla grid like the one Selwyn used for his test.

[Clipper87]

Re: Export to Excel problem

Pat,

I created a DBF test project and indeed it does work both on localhost as on remote server. As the error you were getting was exactly the same as with the import I thought Selwyn had only corrected the import but apparently not.
What build is your server ??? Have you tried republishing the whole project to a clean webroot ? Otherwise you'll have to narrow down the erroneous grid step by step until it is only a super basic something. DBF or SQL ? The import error was corrected last september.

[kingcarol]

Re: Export to Excel problem

This doesn't resolve whatever is happening when you use that property. Just thought I'd share what I do since I kept having trouble with that Excel property...

To do Excel exports, I create an action button that I put on the grid toolbar myself.ExcelActionButton.jpg
The function 'OpenDownloadWindow' that I call from the action button opens a window that gives the user a bit more control over what they do with the excel file...

The Xbasic function that is referred to in the screenshot is:

function OpenDownloadWindow as v (e as p)
'This function is called on the server after the records have been exported, 
'and the export file has been created.

dim b as b 
b = file.to_blob(e.exportfilename)	
dim key as c 
key = "sessfile" + time("hms3",now())+ ".xls"
session.saveDataAsFile(key,b)
dim url as c 
url = Session.FormatFileDataURL(key)


'prevent the built-in file download
e.abort = .t.


'send a javascript response to the client
dim js as c 
js = <<%js%
{grid.object}._showWindow = function(url) {
	var windowName = 'filedownload';
	var currWindow = {Grid.object}.getWindow(windowName);
	if(!currWindow) {
		currWindow = {Grid.object}.createWindow(windowName,'modal',
		{body: {content: {type: 'blank',elementId: '~'}},
		height: '3in',
		width: '7in',
		title: {html: 'Open or Save Excel File',location: 'top'},
		disableMove: false,
		theme: '{grid.style}'
		}
		);		
	}
	var windowDiv = currWindow.getWindowId('body');
	var arrHTML = ['<b>Your Excel file has been created.</b><br><br>To Open the file, just click the link.&nbsp;&nbsp;However, depending on how your browser decides to open the file, you may NOT be able to Save the file after it opens.<br><br>To SAVE the file, right-click the link and select Save As.<br><em>(Depending on your browser, it might be called Save Target As OR Save Link As .)</em><br><br>We recommend right clicking on the link and saving the file for best results.<br><br>'];
	arrHTML.push('<a target="_blank" href="'+url+'"><font size=+1>Right-Click this link to Save (recommended) OR Click this link to Open.</font></a>');
	var windowHTML = arrHTML.join('\n');
	$(windowDiv).innerHTML = windowHTML;
	currWindow.show();
}
%js%

js = js +";" +  crlf() + "{grid.object}._showWindow('" + js_escape(url) + "');"
e.rtc.A_AjaxResponses[].text = js
e.rtc.A_AjaxResponses[..].id = 100000
end function