Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

[jaryder]

This is a strange one and if I get no suggestions I will try to strip is way down to a simple example. I have a customer --> transaction set and a status field in the transaction file which I use as a filter in the form's properties. The field contains OP, PP or PD. The transactions for a customer displays in an embedded browse. My transactions filter is "status $ var->vStatus" and vStatus defaults to "OP!PP!PD" I have a radio button pointing to vStatus with three choices "ALL|OP!PP!PD" "OPEN|OP!PP" and "PAID|PD".

From the form editor I click "Form View" then scroll to the customer with transactions and when I click the radio buttons I see all, open or paid transactions as I expect. If I click on the form from the control panel the radio buttons do nothing and the browse always displays all transactions. I have also loaded the form from another screen and does not work their either.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

When you first open the entire database where does the variable vStatus first get its initial value?

[jaryder]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Tom,

The variable is defined in the session variable section of the form.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Jeff, that seems fine to me. You're trying to re-set the base filter for the linked child table, maybe you need to resynch the form? It's not clear to me why the form works in one context but not another. I am concerned that your filter expression expects the table field to never ever be empty. What filter should Alpha Five be applying if the string in status field is not found in the variable string? Is status field in the parent table as well as the transactions table? Might Alpha be having trouble resolving what your filter means?

[jaryder]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Here is the code for the "On Change" on the radio button.

browse1.resynch()
browse1.refresh()
x=if(vStatus="PD",browse1.fetch_last(),browse1.fetch_first())

Also attached is the form properties.

[jaryder]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Here are screen shots of the program reading up the same customer. The good what was from "form view" within "form editor" and the bad on was from loading the form from the "control panel".

[jaryder]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Here is a sample of the program broken. Load the the application and there is only one form artransactionentry.

Load the form in the design editor and then click on "form view" and then scroll to customer "jeff". When you cllck on the radio button for OPEN you only see transactions with a status of 'OP or PP" This is how it should work.

Now close the form and load it from the control panel and after reading up customer jeff if you click the OPEN radio button nothing happens, all records are still displayed.

I did strip out all extra code from my project and it is still happening in this simple example.

I am at a loss as to why it works differently. Hopefully one of you alphaholics can figure this out for me.

Thank you in advance.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Jeff, in recent versions of Alpha Five I've had miserable luck with dynamic filter expressions for form layouts. The results I get are undependable and erratic. I've quit trying to make them work.

Instead, I filter the desired range of child table records in code. Here's an example showing how I'd rebuild your form, after abandoning the effort to make your dynamic filter expression fly. The technique is simple. Change the string assigned to the "filter_expression" property of the table object in the properties of the form, and then re-run the query.

Hope this helps.

-- tom

[jaryder]

Re: Form behaves differently between load from control panel and form editor

Tom,

What can I say other than thank you. I still have a lot a lot to learn about Alpha. Working with Version 8 right now for my job but in the evening time I am playing with Version 9 and MySql databases. For large multi store applications I feel that a database server if better than a client shared dbf files.

Thank you again.