Reuse list data on multiple components

[Ben S.]

Is it possible to reuse the data from a list in multiple components? Let me explain.

I have a list of 20,000 employee names. I have a main web UX where the user can click a button to assign a name to a field. The button makes the "Add Person" pop-up window appear that has the list of 20,000 names and a search field so the user can type "John" and filter the list to names that contain "John". Once the user has found the desired employee, they can click the "Add" button and a new record is created on the main UX. The list filters as the user types. The list is set to only render the first 50 names, but it still takes a while for the pop-up window to appear the first time. Subsequent calls to the pop-up are instantaneous because the pop-up is cached by the browser. That's all good and has been working fine.

Now I have a situation where I need another pop-up window to appear under special circumstances. I also want the user to be able to search and select employee names from a list. I don't want this pop-up to take a long time to load the list that may already be cached from the Add Person pop-up. I don't see a good way to combine this pop-up with the other one.

The question I'm asking is: Is there a way I have both pop-ups use the same cached list data? I'm talking in terms of "with a few lines of code" and not requiring extensive programming or skill. I can survive if the list data is loaded twice but I want to be taking advantage of reuse if it can be done without a lot of effort.

Ben

[lvasic]

Re: Reuse list data on multiple components

Have you thought about using the same pop-up window but hiding the stuff that you don't need? Two buttons that set a flag to show the columns that you need to see in the form?

[Ben S.]

Re: Reuse list data on multiple components

Have you thought about using the same pop-up window but hiding the stuff that you don't need? Two buttons that set a flag to show the columns that you need to see in the form?

Yes, I thought about that. The one window is used to add a new records, the other is used to reassign an existing record to a new person. Down the road I can think of many more times I'll need to select a person for various reasons, but assign the person to a different table. One of the features that we like is if you select a person from the list it immediately checks to make sure that person isn't already assigned to the scope of the parent record.

Another design choice would be to have the popup window call a universal popup that showed a list to let you select a person. After a person was selected the universal popup would close and return the Person_ID to the previous popup. Then on that screen we could validate for data issues and have the logic to add or edit an existing record on the main form. This design involves an additional popup that feels undesirable when there are only two input fields on the first Add popup; person and department.

I'm asking in case there is a way to store the list content into a global variable, like maybe a JSON string, and then I can assign that string as the record source for various lists I need.

[jgrannis]

Re: Reuse list data on multiple components

I'm asking in case there is a way to store the list content into a global variable, like maybe a JSON string, and then I can assign that string as the record source for various lists I need.

How about this?

var data = {dialog.object}.getListData('LIST1');
var dataJSON = JSON.stringify(data);

Actually, I have a situation where I've set up a textbox with its Lookup property configured to do Auto-suggest lookups based off a list/json data.

Configure a textbox control (let's call it 'textbox1') to do get its Choices from a static source.
Now at some point in the application (I can't really say where might be the appropriate place in your particular app), add this code to some event:

var data = {dialog.object}.getListData('LIST1');
var dataLength = data.length;
var arrayData =[];
for (i = 0; i < dataLength; i++) { 
	    arrayData.push(data[i].Firstname);
}

var txtbxObj = {dialog.object}.getControl('textbox1');
txtbxObj.content.data = arrayData;

[Ben S.]

Re: Reuse list data on multiple components

Jeff, thanks for the input. This looks promising.

How would the data from the dataJSON variable get pushed into LIST2? Is there a setListData method?

[jgrannis]

Re: Reuse list data on multiple components

I edited my comment above with another idea but to get the data into a 2nd list, you could use one of the 2 below methods:

https://www.alphasoftware.com/docume...e%20Method.xml


https://www.alphasoftware.com/docume...e%20Method.xml

[Davidk]

Re: Reuse list data on multiple components

There are Javascript tools created for manipulating arrays... instead of a for loop.

var nameData = [];
nameData = data.map(function(item){
	return item.Firstname;
});