Which way to populate a Dropdown

[askoog66]

I have gotten myself twisted around and unsure of the proper way to populate a Dropdown in Dialogs.

My parent dropdown is an unbound control 'contactclassification' which is used to narrow down the choices in the child bound dropdown control 'contactid'.

I originally thought I should be using cascading choices which worked correctly for new entries.
It did not work for editing as the 'contactid' control was blank since no contactclassification had been selected. I verified that my backend database has all of the same column names as there have been problems with cascading and having different table column names. If I deselect cascading choices, contacted shows correctly for editing, but obviously does not work for new entries.

I am now wondering if I should be using {dialog.object}.populateDropdownBox() instead. I think this would be used in the unbound control 'contactclassification' OnChange event if this is correct.

To add excitement, the controls are in a repeating section.

Can anybody point me in the direction I should be heading.

Thanks...

[agillbb]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Never done this in repeating section, but for regular dialogs, I sometimes have to cascade a drop-down up to 5 levels.
For new records, it is no problem, but when editing, I have a fancy javascript function which I use recursively to perform time-delayed callbacks in order to correctly populate the dialog. It is the only way to do this that I am aware of.
To get v11 to work like a Rolls Royce, you really do need to have your own custom javascript library of functions and tricks.
Andy.

[askoog66]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

So it sounds like you are using a combination of cascading drop downs along with some javascript code. I was thinking it might be better to not use cascading drop downs and just populate the drop downs with javascript using onChange events.

Any chance of getting some snippets of the javascript you are using?

Thanks...

[TheSmitchell]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Here's a short line from some code I have in an onRowRender event in a grid:

{grid.Object}.populateDropdownBox('G','BILLED_STATUS',rowNum,[["Hourly Billable",0],["Do Not Bill",2],["Old",3]],true);

It won't be much different for a {dialog.object}. You would omit the 'G' and rowNum parameters. The last one - true - means "replace existing values". This will delete existing options before adding the new ones. If you specify false, it appends your options.

Options are specified as an array. If you store a value separate from the display value, you'd do it like this (first value is displayed, second is stored): [["Hourly Billable",0],["Do Not Bill",2],["Old",3]]

Otherwise, this is fine: ["Hourly Billable","Do Not Bill","Old"]

You'll need to do a wee bit of work to get the right row in your repeating section, but this is totally doable in your onChange event. You could perform an ajax callback that creates your dropdown choices and then returns the javascript calling {dialog.object}.populateDropdownBox. EG:

function someCallback as c (e as p)

  'code to define myRepSecRow here

  someCallback = "{dialog.object}.populateDropdownBox('BILLED_STATUS:" + myRepSecRow + "',[['Hourly Billable',0],['Do Not Bill',2],['Old',3]], true);"
end function

Yes?

[askoog66]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Thanks again Sarah,

I see where you are going with this and have been playing with the last couple of days.
My problem now is that I cannot figure out how to read a control in the dialog so that I can do a SQL lookup to populate my drop down.

I know how to get the control value in the server-side events, but need the value before submitting. I have tried e._currentRowDataNew.controlname, but cannot get that to work.

Thanks for your continued help

[agillbb]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Oh, Andrew you had asked for a snippet. You can place this sort of code in the dialog's onRenderComplete event:

//init: This code populates the cascading box once dialog is loaded
var myval = {dialog.Object}.getValue('AGENCYPARENTID');
var myval2 = {dialog.Object}.getValue('AGENCYCONTACTID');
if(myval) {
	{dialog.Object}.refreshDropdownBoxChoices('AGENCYCONTACTID','ParentID=:myarg', myval + '|||N|myarg', myval2);
}

For repeating section, there are a few tweaks that you may need to make.

Andy.

[TheSmitchell]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Thanks again Sarah,

I see where you are going with this and have been playing with the last couple of days.
My problem now is that I cannot figure out how to read a control in the dialog so that I can do a SQL lookup to populate my drop down.

I know how to get the control value in the server-side events, but need the value before submitting. I have tried e._currentRowDataNew.controlname, but cannot get that to work.

Thanks for your continued help

Is this in an ajax callback? Or the xbasic portion of the OnChange event? A dropdown in a repeating section on a dialog, correct?

[askoog66]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Sarah,

It is an Ajax callback firing out of the Javascript onChange event for the initial 'contactclassification' drop down. I am trying to call an internal xBasic function that will then populate the second 'contactid' drop down which is a bound control based on the value of the unbound control 'contactclassification'

I think I can get it if I can figure out how to get the value from the first drop down. I read on the forums that maybe e._currentRowDataNew.contaclassification was the way to go but cannot get that to work. I obviously have to get the value before the form is submitted.

Both drop downs are displaying text, but returning integer e.g. "John Q. Public", 2014002

Both of these are in a repeating section.

Selwyn's D41 videos seem to apply but he is using A5.form.populateSelect whereas I am using (dialog.object}.populateDropdownBox. I have lost track of where I read that in the forum, but am assuming this is just one other way to 'skin the cat'. He is not basic any of his choices from another control either, which is what is throwing me for the moment.

Thanks...

[askoog66]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

Andy,

I tried my best to do in xBasic but couldn't pull it off and went for your Javascript solution which ended up being much less code, but I loathe Javascript.

It works in my repeating section as desired except for one undesirable effect....it messes up the display of the drop down in other rows. e.g.
Previous repeating section rows display Bert's Plumbing, but store contactid of 2014050. As soon as I add a row and change the unbound classification, the previous row now displays 2014050. I tried changing the optional currentRowOnly setting in {dialog.Object}.refreshDropdownBoxChoices to false and true and saw no change in either case.

I am wondering if this has something to do with my off-standard select statement in the drop down query. I am having to select 3 columns, not 2 in order to supply my third column to do the filter. I select contactname, contactid, contactclassid from my table to supply the drop down data.

Obviously, only a problem in repeating sections, but cannot seem to find the solution for the display issue. Didn't know if you had run into similar problems.

Javascript code is as follows

var vcontactclass = {dialog.Object}.getValue('CONTACTCLASSIFICATION');
{dialog.Object}.refreshDropdownBoxChoices('CONTACTID', 'contactclassid=:whatclass', vcontactclass + '|||n|whatclass');

[agillbb]

Re: Which way to populate a Dropdown

This is straight from the function reference:
{dialog.Object}.refreshDropdownBoxChoices(controlName [,dynamicFilter [,dynamicFilterArguments [,selectedValue [,currentRowOnly]]]]);

Note that you need to set the currentrowonly parameter to 'true' if you only wish the current row to be refreshed.