Finding a child record on a set's form

[Jeff Fried]

I don't know why I'm not seeing a way to do this. I have a form based on a set. On the form is a child browse, object name browse1. I want to put a button on the form that finds a record in browse1.

I would like to do this with action scripting, if possible, but if not, what xbasic am I missing?

Thanks if you can help.

Jeff

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

What sort of find do you want to do? Search for a value in a particular field? How would that value be specified?

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Stan,

The child table (browse1) is a product list for the company those products belong to. Fields on the product list include product number (prodno), product description (desc), etc. I would just like to set it up to find by product description. Since these product lists are usually very long I want to avoid the need for a user to click in the region, then page down until they find the description (the table is alphabetically by description).

The button would simply bring up a find dialog, just like any find dialog when finding a record at the parent level. It would put the user into the region and go to the target record based on what they typed in. If it was auto-complete, that would be great but unnecessary.

Jeff

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Take a look at the functionality of the invoice items browse on the invoice form in AlphaSports. (table field rule lookup) Click in the deacription field and start typing.

Perhaps you could adapt it to your situation.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

I see what you mean. It's not quite what I'm after. It relies on having a field rule with a lookup table that I may not want to set up for other reasons. I'm really after an approach where you click a button at the top of the form and navigate to the right record on the browse.

Jeff

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Jeff, is the link field connecting the child and parent tables the same field you want to search by?

Does the user get to pick which column to search on?

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

I'm not very knowledgeable about finding in browses of child tables. Is your set similar to the vendors set in AlphaSports with vendors as the parent and products as the child?

If so you might consider having a button on the form which opened a filtered form of the products table. That form would have a browse of all the products for the vendor chosen on the calling form. Finding a product in that browse simply entails finding in the table, not a set. Should be straightforward.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

No, the link is not a field that would be searched. And the search is almost always by product description, so this would be hard-wired, so to speak. They can always sort whatever column they want and browse (page or arrow down or up) alphabetically by brand, or product number, or margin, or whatever. But the specific need is just to click a button at the top of the form, be asked for the product description, and navigate directly to that point in the region.

The situation is this. If they want to get to a product down in the lower half of the region, beyond view, they will click into the region and page down until they get to what they want. I had forgotten that this is how it was set up a long time ago. Today, when reviewing something else with them, I noticed that they had no direct navigation in the same way as I provide buttons for doing different finds at the parent level. I said I would set up a similar button to take them to an area of the region. Then when I went to figure it out, something I thought would be very straightforward, it wasn't as intuitive as I thought it would be.

Jeff

[Mike Wilson]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

I like progressive lookups. Maybe this is what you might be able to use.

http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ht=progressive

or

http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ght=LV_example

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

I'm not very knowledgeable about finding in browses of child tables. Is your set similar to the vendors set in AlphaSports with vendors as the parent and products as the child?

If so you might consider having a button on the form which opened a filtered form of the products table. That form would have a browse of all the products for the vendor chosen on the calling form. Finding a product in that browse simply entails finding in the table, not a set. Should be straightforward.

"Finding in browses of child tables" is the key. I don't want to get into filters for this. I would just leave it the way it is rather than give the user a different experience from finding at the parent level. Anyhow, they would always want the full list in front of them. They just want to be located at the right place on the list.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

This works on the AlphaSports vendors form when the products browse is visible.

rslt = ui_get_text("Find what?","Enter the description.","")
topparent:Object3:Description.activate()
topparent:object3.Fetch_First()
topparent:Object3.locate_next(rslt)

As with any text locate it will find "he" in "she" before it finds "the", alphabetically.

[Mike Wilson]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Jeff,
You're looking for the functionality of recno_goto() and I don't believe that works for child tables, only parent tables.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Jeff, doing a find by key in the linked child table is problematic. Because the form is set based, the records in the embedded browse are connected only to the current parent table record, so in a sense, they're prefiltered. Only children related to the parent are available. A find by key searches across the entire table, not just the records currently "available" to the parent. This is why there is no "easy" solution to your problem. Any search you attempt will have to include the current link field value as well as the description key.

[Ted Giles]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Jeff, have a fiddle with this.
The set is Standard and Upsidedown. It's not perfect but might give you a lead.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Finding a child record on a set's form

Jeff, doing a find by key in the linked child table is problematic. Because the form is set based, the records in the embedded browse are connected only to the current parent table record, so in a sense, they're prefiltered. Only children related to the parent are available. A find by key searches across the entire table, not just the records currently "available" to the parent. This is why there is no "easy" solution to your problem. Any search you attempt will have to include the current link field value as well as the description key.

Tom, I never realized this would be such a challenge. It would appear on the surface to be a few steps, including entry into the region, then giving the region focus for purposes of setting an index and doing a find. But opening "Another form or browse" is not answering the need to open "related child browse". It's not another form or browse, so it doesn't seem to fit with the tools available. If I come up with a solution, I'll be sure to share it.