Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

[-Jinx-]

I'm seeking advice on the best way to set this up.

A maintenance manager wants to put up a big T.V. in his department that will show open maintenance work orders. There are a three different types of work orders. General, Preventative, and Safety. These receive a different priority based on their type and another separate priority setting. Because of that, I'd like to have 3 separate grids. I'd like the page the grids are in to cycle through each of those grids on a time interval. Basically like a changing billboard.

Bonus points are awarded to anyone who knows the best way to cycle through all the pages of records in each of the grids WHILE doing the above.


My thoughts are to embed each grid in a separate page and then have a master page (of sorts) that cycles through the child pages. I'm hoping one of you has this licked already or knows a nice streamlined way of doing it.

Thanks!

[lgrupido]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

I would embed all 3 grids into a UX. Each time the UX is refreshed, you increment a counter by 1. When the counter reaches 3, drop it to 1 again. (The counter would be a session variable.)

The counter will determine which grid is shown on the screen. (Show/Hide on the grid container, session.counter = #)

Then just set the UX to auto-refresh and put it in an a5w page.

That should pretty much do it!

[lgrupido]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

Alternate method:

Don't use grids. In the UX, create 3 list controls that have the same basic setup as your grids. (You could even use a single list and modify the list settings if you want, but that might get a bit crazy.)

The list controls, if done right, will look better than a grid and be easier to control.

[-Jinx-]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

Thanks lgrupido,
I generally prefer to work with grids in this type of instance for speed and navigability. I love lists and use them for a lot of things as well, but I find that they generally don't work well when there are a large amount of records to show.

I haven't set up the mechanism to cycle through different grids just yet but I DID figure out how to cycle through pages on a grid.

onGridInitializeComplete event:

setInterval(function(){ {grid.Object}.refresh(); }, 5000);

onGridRefresh event:

var detailView = {};
var grid = {};
{grid.object}._getGridVariables(grid,detailView);
if(grid.hasNextPage) {
 {grid.Object}.pageNavigate('next');
} else {
{grid.Object}.pageNavigate('first');
}

There's probably a more elegant way to do it but this seems to be working since I wanted to refresh at an interval anyway.

[CharlesParker]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

I cannot offer advice BUT I do want to say great post - made me think and appreciate the versatility of Alpha to get something done pronto...

[GGandhi]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

setInterval(function(){ {grid.Object}.refresh(); }, 5000);

instead of that you may be able to just check autorefresh in the grid properties and set to 60 seconds which is default or whatever you like.
you can place those grids in separate pages and call them grid1.a5w, grid2.a5w and grid3.a5w
then in the head portion of each page you may be able to add this code and see if it works.

<script>
<!--
setTimeout(function() {
window.location.href = "grid2.a5w";
},3000);
-->
</script>

this will be in the grid1.a5w, then just increase the numbers to cycle thru.
see if that works.

incidentally, you showed me something very good: how to cycle thru the grid. wonderful. learned something very nice today.
thank you.

http://screencast.com/t/o7TELLDI3Z9
this is done with just a5w pages (3) seen in live preview did not publish to test it yet.

[-Jinx-]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

Thanks,

I did end up using a UX component with embeded grids. Definitely the way to go over A5W pages. I tried them first but getting the layout to look the way I want was a constant battle. Using the UX component made layout a snap with it's containers and other layout options. I did have to use the UX component to create it's own A5W page so a browser has something to point to but no modification of that page is needed.

GGandhi,
I had NO idea there was an "autorefresh" setting for the grid! I just kind of assumed there wouldn't be. So I learned something new today too. Thanks!

The manager decided that he wanted only one grid to show the work orders, which is fine since I figured out the automatic page navigation, and instead he'd like to see another grid with the employees and their number of work orders and past due work orders. Once again, a snap due to using the UX as my "base" with embedded components.

If I do want to switch to other views in the future, I think I will use seperate UX components with embeded components and just redirect from one to another similar to GGandhi's idea. I admit, I havent' tried hiding the various grids instead so that will be the backup. I shy away from that option just because it's hard to get rid of the "empty space" that's not really empty which occurs when you hide stuff client-side.

[NicholasWieland]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

Always more then one way to skin the Alpha Cat.

[lgrupido]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

Jinx,

When hiding stuff client side in a UX - wrap what you want to hide in a container and then hide the container instead of the individual controls.
Much easier to get rid of the space that way, because the container itself doesn't have any space.

Test different settings of allowing the container to float or not - it sometimes makes a difference.

[GGandhi]

Re: Advice for Grid "Billboard" that cycles through different Grids.

you can also do in another way.
create an ux/dialog and add a placeholder below the dialog and insert buttons in the dialog to open the components on fly.(of course this will need user interaction to cycle thru other grids)
http://www.screencast.com/t/oXeMbBHxufoO

i haven't tested with auto refresh settings on these grids.