How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

[smrogers]

I don't know if the title explains well what I want to do. A picture is worth a thousand words:



In the example above, I have select records chosen in an Xdialog List view (I did this only for exmaple purposes - I dont' know if this is the way it should be done).

I would like to be able to open a browse based on a query of selected records from a list like the one pictured. The list COULD have sequential keys selected (i.e. the first five records for example) or a random selection of records (like the one pictured).

I'm not asking someone to tell me specifically how to do this (unless it isn't that difficult!) - just a nice shove in the right direction. Thanks!

[Stan Mathews]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

The result of selecting entries in the listbox should be stored in a variable (crlf() delimited list). You want to open a browse with the filtering like

IS_ONE_OF( alltrim(some_field_name),that_variable_name )

Depending on how many records there are from which to select you might want to use a faster alternative to is_one_of().

Example from webhelp.

cities = <<%dlg%
Atlanta
New York
Los Angeles
Boston
Johannesburg
Sydney
%dlg%
ui_dlg_box("Multi-Select List Box",<<%dlg%
{wrap=30}
[%M%.30,5cities_chosen^#cities];
{line=1,0};
This variable shows what entries in the above list box are selected.;
[%mw%.30,5cities_chosen];
<OK>
%dlg%)

? cities_chosen
= New York
Los Angeles
Sydney


? is_one_of("Sydney",cities_chosen)
= .T.

[martinwcole]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Shawn, here is an idea that may work:

I have a form that contains a multistate button object populated by xbasic, from a global variable, and is therefore dynamic

the oninit script is:

dim global vistchoices as c
DIM pObj AS P
pObj = topparent:STATUS_JOB.this
DIM pObj AS P
pObj = topparent:STATUS_JOB.this
pObj.settings.dynamic_list = var->vistchoices

although on this form its purpose is to show the status of the current parent, the onchange event for the object could filter records in an embedded browse.

you would get the choices from your current approach into a global variable, and then open a form populating the multistate button so they could click on one and filter - user friendly.

[smrogers]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Stan / Martin - Thanks both for your insight; I'll be tackling this shortly and will post my success/failure

[smrogers]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Stan - I've been working on your solution at the moment, and probably should have elaborated a bit more...

The list will contain more than one fields, separated with a "|"
In this case, a ClientCode field and a ClientName field. The ClientCode field will be the field I want to match for the query; the ClientName field is displayed because codes often don't mean much by themselves.

The variable that contains the selections from the dialog is 'vc_client_code'. Having said that;

I tried using word(Var->vc_Client_code,1) to extract the ClientCode from the variable, however the returned result is only the last in the list.

I think you see my problem -- I need to strip out (for query purposes) the ClientName part.... or do I?

-------------------

Looks like I figured it out... I just did the query based on the same fields in the list, i.e. ClientCode+ClientName. Worked perfectly. Thanks again for the insight

Again, your help is valued....

[smrogers]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Well, I thought Ihad it... but it's not working.

To simplify things, I made the selection list from just one field (Name), instead of originally making the selection a multi-column selection (ClientCode and Name).

I assigned the variable vc_client_name (global) to the selection. The next action in the script displays a dialog box with the reult of the selection(s) stored in vc_client_name. This part works - if I select one client, their name is listed. If I select three clients, they are all shown in the dialog.

However - The next action opens a browse based on the following filter:

is_one_of(Name,Var->vc_client_name)

This is the key part - I want to open a browse with just the clients selected in the list. Instead, I receive and error saying there are no records in the query.

So where am I going wrong? Am I conceptually missing the boat, or is there something else that needs to be done? Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Sounds like you have it right.

Do you get a valid expression in the Action Script expression builder?

[smrogers]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Thanks for the reply Stan...

The script has three actions:

Display the XDialog to obtain the client(s) selected

Display a Dialog (for debugging purposes) to show the records selected

Open a saved browse for the table. After selecting the browse I want to use, the next screen asks if I have a selection criteria. This is where I put in the expression.

When I put in the expression, something weird happens (see the following screens):









In the filter builder, I put in the expression as you explained it. When I click OK, I come back to the selection criteria screen, and the expression has been changed to .T.

So I click on the filter builder again, and this time it takes.

From that point forward, the expression shows as it should - but I'm wondering if this has anything to do with it? I duplicated this script to XBASIC and went through the code as best I could, and it appeards the expression is correct.

Not sure what I"m doing wrong... On RARE occasions (and I can't duplicate it), SOMETIMES this works... but it has happened only a few times.

Ultimately I am going to use this procedure so that after the user selects one or more clients, Engagement letters will be produced for the clients selected... I'm just substituting the browse here at this point so I can visually see that this is all working...

[smrogers]

Re: How to use a selection of Keys in a browse

Stan, an update and a solution:

I tested the method you described with a different table in the database; same basic structure (just 1040 clients vs. 1120S). Field names and sizes are all pretty much the same - in this case, the client name fields are both called "NAME" and are both 60 characters long.

For some reason, the procedure works PERFECTLY with the 1040 table, but continues to give me errors with the 1120S table. I packed, re-indexed and did everything else I could think of to verify the integrity of the table to no avail.

So I played around, using a different field other than NAME. I used CODE instead. And it worked perfectly... with the exception that all that was listed in the multi-select list box
was the client CODE - which was meaningless to a great degree making the whole thing useless... but it did work.

So I tried the same procedure, using the "List View Control" instead of the multi-select list box. The difference for me was that the List View Control allows you to display mutliple fields, like CODE and NAME, but return the value of just one field. Since CODE seemed to be working, that's what I did... and it works, again, perfectly. And now the user can see the company CODE and NAME, making it a useful listing.

If there are any suggestions as to why the multi-select list box didn't work for one table but did for another, I'd be very interested...