Auto-Suggest-List Fill in Fields...

[cavj1]

Hi All...

I have a Auto-Suggest-List lookup on a field that allows for multiple selections. When user selects an item in the list it fills in a value in another field. Since it is multi-select I need it to put each value in the other field.

Ex. List:

Company A Code 23
Company B Code 24
Company C Code A32

The Auto Suggest List allows for multiple selections so if they Select Company A and then Company C the field has the value Company A and Company C. However, with the fill-in additional fields it only puts the value of the last selected item. Using the same example. If you select Company A it fills in Code 23, then select Company C it changes the value in that field to Code A32. I need it to combine them so it says Code 23, Code A32.

Hoping this makes sense as it is a simplified example. In reality the select list is much larger and you could potentially select up to 7 values.

Any ideas? I was thinking something in the AfterSelect but not sure how to get there.

I know some are going to say use a repeating section and that may work but then I have to re-tool how we use the data as the UX is to fill in a state form and it has to be in this format.

Thanks
Joe

[Lance Gurd]

Hi Joe,

I did a bit of experimenting with this and found that there is always some data recorded to invoke the auto suggest list which created a problem with setting the value of the second field so I changed to an edit combo list

I set up a table to lookup in MYSQL with this

CREATE TABLE `testcompanies` (
  `no` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `comp` char(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  `compcode` char(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`no`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
​

and then made this component

As_fillin.a5wcmp

In my real life version of this type of thing I have lists of words (shortcoded into a viewbox expanding list) whereby the used selects say 70 C stud from a branch in the list and it concatenates '70mm stud @ maximum 600mm centres' to my description box.

Hope this helps

[lgrupido]

Does the user need to see the auto-filled in field? If not, you could fill in the second field with a trigger once you save the record.

You would no longer update that field with lookup/fill in. You would instead grab the data from field 1 in the update trigger and use that info to create the data in the second field.

But if you need the secondary data BEFORE you save the record, you could do it with an ajax callback that does the same thing.

Basically, you would break the list in field1 down. Lookup all the values from field 2 and then concatenate them together to create the value of the second field.

You could even have it do the fill in fields - and then only run the ajax callback if there is more than 1 value selected, because THAT value will be correct.

[lgrupido]

OH - I just thought of another idea.

You could lookup and fill-in to a third field instead. That field would only get one value.

But you could do a javascript function that you would run on change of the third field which would add the value to the field you want to hold the values.

You'd need to figure out how to remove a value if someone unchecks an option, of course.

[cavj1]

Thank you everyone for the replies. I used Lance's example and it worked perfect. Much appreciated!!!