Set Session Variable Based on Selected Grid Row

[rsmereka]

I have a grid linker containing five grids:

Department
Zone
Dealer
Customer
Order

I am trying to set some session variables based on one of the selected row values in the grid.

I have tried using the code:

<%A5 session.grid_department = {ParentGrid:Department} %>

in the zone grid 'above grid' 'freeform edit region' which does resolve the selected department correctly except with the error:

Error:Script:EVALUATE_A5W line:4 session.grid_department = 10 Invalid date constant

I know it does not make much sense assigning a session variable from the 'freeform edit region' but grids do not have an appropriate static HTML area required by 'ParentGrid'.

Anyone have any idea what this error means. I am at at loss since there are no dates involved. Or better yet, is there are better way to set session variables based on a selected grid row within a grid linker?

Any/all help is greatly appreciated.
Happy holidays everyone :)
Rick

[Peter.Greulich]

This thread might help you:
http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=64593

Look at Pat's post at the bottom for method to capture multiple fields.

[rsmereka]

Thanks for the suggestion Peter,

I read the thread and I don't think I can use the method suggested since I have multiple grids and am not able to use links in place of labels.

Basically, I am planning to put a button below all the grids with the title 'place an order' or something like that. This button would redirect the user to the order page, at which point, I will need to have stored somewhere the current:

department
zone
dealer
customer

Agreed that I could pass these in the URL of the page re-direct, however, I will still need to keep track of these values as the user selects records in the various grids.

Any other suggestions? Anyone.
Rick

[Pat Bremkamp]

Rick,

OK, I think I get what you are trying to do. You want the user to select rows on each of the grids, then assign the resulting values to session variables with one button press. So, perhaps you should consider a different way to do the same thing.

If it was me, I'd use a dialog component and put each of the four choices either in a dropdown or a lookup grid. That way, if any of the "lower" choices are dependent on the prior choice (say different dealers in different zones) you can make the list of choices change when the prior selection is made.

Then you can easily assign the session variables with Xbasic in the AfterValidate event.

Another advantage...gridlinkers are slow and dialogs are fast(er).

Pat

[rsmereka]

Pat,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I think I understand what your idea is although I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Firstly, what is a 'lookup grid'? Second, the users have said that they need to see more than one piece of information in order to make a selection. For example, in the case of selecting a dealer, I must display the dealer number, full name and company name. If I use a drop-down, can I concatenate all of this into one entry? Or maybe there is another way of presenting more than one piece of information.

Rick

[Pat Bremkamp]

Rick,

Sure. Here are some examples from an application I'm working on.

A lookup grid is just a grid component. You make this first with whatever info you want to display. In screen1, this is the grid in the lower right. This component displays fields that you want to copy into your main component. You do not create a page for this component. I usually make it read only for speed and compactness and add a quick search for long lists. Then, in the field definitions for the field in your dialog is a property called "Lookup". Check that box and it will guide you through specifying the lookup grid name and mapping the fields from the lookup grid to corresponding fields in your dialog. The little spyglass is the icon that triggers the lookup.

Screen2 shows a dropdown with more than one field displayed. In this case, I made the display and expression equal to ID_Code+" "+Name. You can then save those or entirely different fields from the record.

Pat

[rsmereka]

Pat,

Great explaination, thanks Pat.

I think I'll proceed with the lookup method which bring me to another question. Can I do multiple look-up prompts? For example, each one of these would be a lookup that qualifies the previous ones:

Department: --- Select one ---
Zone : --- Select one ---
Dealer : --- Select one ---
Customer : --- Select one ---

Obviously, the lookup lists would have to be dynamically loaded based on the previous selection. Any thoughts?

Rick

[SteveHanson]

I assume you've moved forward on this but if you haven't, just some thoughts on what you could do.

I'm doing something very similar to what you're doing. I created a dialog with 7 drop down lists each of which references a different table.

Yours is different because you've got a dependency relationship between the choices. Basically choice #1 filters choice #2, etc. assuming I understand it correctly. What you do will be dependent, possibly, on the amount of data being filtered. If it's going to be a lot, you probably don't want to send it all out there and let a javascript modify the dropdown lists (assuming that is even possible).

What would really be cool is if you could make choice # 2 visible only after choice #1 was made, and at the same time trigger a request to the server for just the data that you'll show in choice #2, etc. That would keep the traffic down and you wouldn't be regenerating the entire page.

Of course, you could just go to a new page which picked up the filtered data for choice#2 but I seem to remember you saying that the user wanted to see or have the ability to see, the previous stuff too.

what did you end up doing?

[rsmereka]

Steve,

Yes I did move forward based on Pat's original suggestion of using drop-down's. And as Pat said, they are so much faster than grid's. I have this whole page just about done. There are four drop-downs that depend on the previous one and the final component which shows the detail is a read-only grid. I am using parameters in each drop-down based on session variables. I choose session variables because I will also be placing another button on the main dialog that allows the user to place an order (which will be redirected to another page) based on all the current relationships.

Funny, I was just thinking that it would be great to make one or more drop-downs invisible based on a previous selection. For example, I have departments where there are no zones and/or no dealers. I still have to figure out how I am going to accomplish that. My current idea is to use some kind of 'all' flag for the session variable and cause the DB filtering not to ocurr. But it would be much cleaner if I could just remove one or more of the drop-downs from the dialog.

Rick

[SteveHanson]

You could make the subsequent selections invisible until a prerequisite selection is made. Javascript might be able to accomplish that through the onclick event.
Here's a place to check that out: http://www.w3schools.com

[rsmereka]

Steve,

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. I have used W3schools before to brush up on HTML and CSS.

Rick