Web Dialog: Custom control / input type="file"

[Antony]

I would like to use an input control of type = "file" but for some reason it seems to be missing from the available control types.

How can I use custom control to allow user to browse for a file and put the result into a textbox ?

Thanks for any ideas.

[Steve Wood]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type="file"

A couple ways:

On a Dialog, create a Label field and go to Freeform and enter something like: <input type="file" name="FileToUpload" size=80>

On a Grid create a Calculated Field such as Upload = "". Then insert that field where you want in the grid, go to Freeform and enter something like: <input type="file" name="FileToUpload" size=80>

For an A5W page, check the Alpha Help file, they have a good set of instructions that are pretty complete.

The instructions above for Dialog and Grid are going to be incomplete because you still have to write code to do something with the value in FileToUpload. The processing code is typically (probably has to be) in the A5W page. Here's an idea of how that code would start out:

if eval_valid("property_edit_DetailView_Save") 
	if FileToUpload.filename <> "" then 
'rest of code here

The property_edit_DetailView_Save is the name of the Submit button for that page and will change depending on if you are in a Grid, Detail, or Dialog. Its a bit of a process because you have to publish and view the page, then look at source to find out what the button name is. The rest of the code in this example can be figured out by reviewing the Alpha help I described above.

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type=&quot;file&quot;

I am trying to upload a file to the Application Server.

I created a Dialog component named "fileupload" with a Textbox named FileToUpload.
In Freeform layout I set:
<input type="file" name="FileToUpload" size=80>

I include the Dialog component in "upload.a5w" and insert xbasic in "upload.a5w":

x_upload.Output.Body.Dialog_HTML = stritran(x_upload.Output.Body.Dialog_HTML,"method=\"post\"","method=\"post\" enctype=\"multipart/form-data\"")
if FileToUpdate.filename<>""
    file.from_blob(ServerSetting.Document_Root + "\\" + FileToUpload.filename, FileToUpload.data)
    msg = "<a href=\"/" + FileToUpload.filename + "\" target=\"_blank\">" + FileToUpload.filename + "</a> was uploaded<br /><br />"
end if

The first line of code is from an earlier post by Steve Wood. The next bit is from the Alpha Help file.

As I try to load the page it complains:

Error:Script: /Upload.a5w line:109
if FileToUpload.filename <> ""
Not found
FileToUpload not found."

The Alpha help file says:

FileToUpload will have two properties - filename and data.
FileToUpload.filename is a character string and it contains the name of the file as it had existed on the user's system. This will be just the bare filename with no path information.
FileToUpload.data contains the contents of the uploaded file. The type of FileToUpload.data is blob, even if the file that has been uploaded is plain ASCII.

I have not set anything for FileToUpload to have those properties. Do these need to be defined/set by me somewhere? Maybe my problem lies elsewhere?

Any help will be much appreciated.

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type=&quot;file&quot;

Well I am still struggling and have changed the code on my upload.a5w page to:

x_upload.Output.Body.Dialog_HTML = stritran(x_upload.Output.Body.Dialog_HTML,"method=\"post\"","method=\"post\" enctype=\"multipart/form-data\"")
if [COLOR="Red"]eval_valid("submitButton") [/COLOR]then
    file.from_blob(ServerSetting.Document_Root + "\\" + FileToUpload.filename, FileToUpload.data)
    msg = "<a href=\"/" + FileToUpload.filename + "\" target=\"_blank\">" + FileToUpload.filename + "</a> was uploaded<br /><br />"
end if

which now means the page loads.

However, after selecting a file and pressing "Submit" I get error 500 and:

FileToUpload.data subelement not found

This is interesting because it seems to mean that FileToUpload.filename is found, so why is FileToUpload.data subelement not found?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Garry Flanigan]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type=&quot;file&quot;

I found the problem. I had two sections of Xbasic inserted in the a5w page, which when consolidated into one section worked (with code as shown in last post). :)

[dkolbach]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type=&quot;file&quot;

Does anybody knows were to find the help for the filetoupload function?

[Steve Wood]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type=&quot;file&quot;

If you seach the Alpha Help you will find a couple basic examples. But filetoupload is not a function, it's part of a process. So it depends on what you want to do. Your best source is this message board.

[dkolbach]

Re: Web Dialog: Custom control / input type=&quot;file&quot;

Thanks Steve, i search the help (local and web) and could not find what this post was talking about. I do understand that filetoupload is a process, but i was looking to speed up my knodledge by reading about. I building a grid with 4 places for users to upload documents for a shipment (Air will bill, invice, details and certificate) this documents could be a PDF, excel or word. I'll need to format the document name to include the shipment number and type of document. All documents will be store on the server under a folder with the shipment number for name. My problem is that the method described, i'm guessing only brings the last file selected, how i can selected 4 diferente files and press the submit button to create 4 documents on the server?

Thanks for your help