Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

[DRW]

I have a main form that contains an embedded browse listing related child records, with the main form displaying the fields of the focused child record. I have a button that invokes opening a companion form for the child�s embedded browse to edit the child record that is in focus in the embedded browse. All works fine, but apparently A5 does not incorporate a nonprocedural mechanism to automatically refresh the data view of the child record fields displayed on the parent form when the companion form is closed after editing the child. By that I mean if I edit the child record in the companion form, save, and exit back to the parent form the parent form display is not updated/refreshed for any changes I made to the child record unless I explicitly invoke a form/screen refresh action. That�s workable to the in that I can issue the refresh action following the close of the companion form after returning to the main form as the final button OnPush action. But, it strikes me that issuing the refresh in this manner is really not very inefficient. It effectively forces the entire form to refresh, when all that I need/wantt refreshed are the displayed child fields. If the parent form has a lot of other data from the parent table or other child tables I�d rather not be refreshing all that data as well since none of it has changed. What is the best way to force a refresh of just the fields pertaining to the child table that was edited in the companion form?

[Keith Hubert]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

Hi Douglas,

Have you tried Object_Refresh?

[DRW]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

I have tried invoking the 'Refresh Object' as the last action in the 'OnPush' event of the parent form�s button that calls the companion form for editing the child record.

The button has only the following two actions defined:
Open �Companion form� for an Embedded Browse
Refresh Objects (with specific child fields specified)

The companion form opens, individual fields are edited and the form is closed with changes saved. The child table fields that are displayed on the parent form, edited in the companion browse, and which were specified in the Refresh Objects action, are not refreshed. If I tab through the fields on the parent form any fields that were changed in the companion form magically refresh individually as focus moves off each field onto another. But his has nothing to do with having tried to invoke the 'Refresh Objects' action because the same behavior is exhibited if the 'Refresh Objects' action is eliminated.

If the 'Refresh Objects' action is replaced with a 'Refresh Display' in the above scenario then everything on the parent form is properly refreshed. Why doesn�t the 'Refresh Objects' work similarly?

If I put a button on the form that invokes only the 'Refresh Objects' action then the specified objects get refreshed. Why would this work but not the combination of 'Open Companion Form' and 'Refresh Objects'? I still don�t understand why A5 doesn�t simply automatically refresh the fields of the child table that were edited in the companion form.

[DaveM]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

Try putting you action on the form's on activate event? I believe that when you activate the main form each time it will refresh.

Putting it on a button to open a seperate form refreshes before you have done any changes.

Also, I think you can refresh the browse by name as kieth was trying to say?


.

[Keith Hubert]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

Hi Dave,

Thanks for fleshing out my reply.

[DRW]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

The only way I am getting it to sort of work correctly is by uising browse.Resynch() ., as in the following:

The button now has the following two actions defined:
Open ‘Companion form’ for an Embedded Browse


this opens the companion form and allows editing of the child table
data for the child record that is in focus on the embbeded browse
showing on the parent form. This works perfectly fine.

topparent:Unitbrowse.activate()
topparent:Unitbrowse.resynch()

These two xbasic commands will resynch the embedded browse when the companion form is closed, and they seem to work ok, with one oddity. I have one granchild table displayed on the parent form parent that is the child of the table being edited in the companion form. I can add or delet the granschild reords in the companion form with no problem. But if I delete any grandchild records and then close the companion form, the grandchilds embedded browse on the parent form will not properly resynch if there is any sort applied to its view, i.e it will only resych if the embbeded browse is in default record number order. Kind of odd. I've tried a lot of possibilities to work around this but so far haven't hit the magic solution. I'll keep playing.

[DRW]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

Oops, I spoke too quicky. The part about grandchild embedded browses getting proeprly resynched/refreshed correctly - but only if their default sort order is by record no. is not correct. They don't consistently get resynched - sometimes they do sometimes they don't. Haven't deduced a pattern yet. The one consistency is if a sort order for their browse based on a field then the embedded browse display for them is always out of synch after the parent embedded browse gets resynched. And it doesn't matter whehther a separate resynch is issued for the grandchild embbedded browse - it still reamins messed up. Like I said I'll just keep trying various other things to see if I stumble upon the right combo of actions to straighten them out.

[Nick Oldfield]

Re: Companion Forms and Refreshing the Parent Form Display

I think I might have encountered a somewhat similar problem, see http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=75765 I am not using parent/child forms but have a form with an embedded browse and other fields from the same table. If I double click a row in the browse to open a "change form", and then make changes the changes are reflected in the embedded browse but not in the related fields on the form. Refreshing the fields has no effect. Tabbing through the fields refreshes them. Did you solve your problem and if so how?