Programmatically Hide a field

[Jberry]

Hello all,

I'm at a loss on how to allow users to choose their own fields to be printed or exported. Say they have the following fields in a grid:

LastName
FirstName
Address
City
State
Zip

They want to do a search for "NY" and export them to Excel (or printed on a report) but they only want LastName and Zip exported. How do I offer them that option? I'd thought of allowing them to choose which fields to export by adding another field and then using the ShowHide expression but that will still export the field. What I think I need to do is use the Column Properties "Hide column" feature but I don't know how/where to change that when the user is ready to export.

LastName [x]
FirstName [ ]
Address [ ]
City [ ]
State [ ]
Zip [x]

Anyone else had to do something similar or can give me some ideas?

Thanks

-John

[Keith Hubert]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi John,

Do they always only want LastName and Zip exported?

Or, are you asking how to give the users a choice of which fields to export after the search?

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi Kieth,

They want to choose the fields they want exported or printed, it could be different every time.

Thanks

-John

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Nobody ever had to do something similar? I'm open for any ideas or thoughts

[Steve Wood]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

You are on the right track to build a UX component allowing them to check off the fields they want. Then when the UX is submitted, you use their selections in an xbasic routine to include only the items they selected. The export would just be a coded csv file that is downloaded after it is created. I don't know what you mean by "report" or how that differs from the export, but you would still have to generate the output using xbasic; it would be difficult to use Alpha's report writer to generate a totally flexible report based on selection. You can generate a CSV or a true Excel output, but the later is more difficult and requires learning the .Net functions to create Excel output.

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi Steve,

Thanks for replying. I can live with giving them a text file or Excel file and they can generate whatever they want with Excel. Let me see if I can get something working using your suggestion.

Thanks

-John

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi Steve,

Using a grid, I notice if I Hide a field then the Excel Export does not export that hidden field.

To make this easier to explain and for me to test. Is it possible to create a button and once clicked it can hide a field using the Hide checkbox in the Column Properties? (See Pic).

Thanks

-John

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Maybe an better question is where/how can I get access to that Hide property. Server Side events under e.tmpl ? I see MaxColumns, max_row, RecordNavigationStyle etc but I don't see Hide. Is there a place to get access to that property and change it?

Thanks

[Steve Wood]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

This is a bit old (v10 app) but was an experimental app called "Dynamic Columns" to hide/show columns in a grid: http://ialpha5.com/dynamic_cols/Tabb...s_tabbedui.a5w. Here is the associated video: http://www.screencast.com/t/z6ioIlowPi

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Steve, thanks again. That looks like what I want to do but I don't know how. Do you have a downloadable file I can look at to see how you did it or is there another video that explains how you did it?

Thanks

-John

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi Steve,

Was there another video that shows me how to do the Hide fields?

Thanks

-John

[agillbb]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hey,

You could create a row of action buttons (one per column) to be displayed in the toolbar section - they would toggle the particular column on and off.

You would place the toggle logic in the onclick event for each action button (in the example, the action is called SHOWMARKERS):

var myPointer = {grid.componentName}_BUTTONS_SHOWMARKERS;
if (myPointer.html == 'Hide FirstName') {
	{grid.object}.showGridColumn('FIRSTNAME',false);
	myPointer.html = 'Show FirstName';
} else {
	{grid.object}.showGridColumn('FIRSTNAME',true);
	myPointer.html = 'Hide FirstName';
}
myPointer.refresh();

Cheers,
Andy.

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi Andy,

I'll give it a shot. The property for "Hide" needs to be checked though, not sure this solution does that but I'll give it a go.

Thanks

-John

[Jberry]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the tip but it didn't work. It hides the fields on screen but if you want to export to Excel then that field still gets exported. I need a way to get access to the Hide property on the grid so I can change it to True. After the user selects the fields he/she wants then if I go to another grid I need to be able to do something like e._set.Field2.hide = .t. so that Field2 is not available, then when they click on the Excel export it will not export that field. I just don't seem to be able to find where or if it's possible to get access to that "Hide" property.

[agillbb]

Re: Programmatically Hide a field

Ok, to hide 1 column, place this type of code in the OnGridExecute server-side event, where column 10 is the xbasic template column number:

e.tmpl.flagMustRecalculateGridLayoutAndControls = .t.
e.tmpl.field_info[10].Column.Hide = .t.

However, you still have work to do because you need to trigger this event (possibly using toggle action buttons in the toolbar area, one per column, to perform a callback), and use xbasic logic to keep track of which columns to hide or show.

Sounds like a bit of work. Must be a better way....