How can I selectively allow adding/editing rows in Dialog repeating section?

[gknott]

This may be something easy to do and I'm just overlooking the obvious. I am trying to set up a dialog which will be used for entering new work orders and editing existing work orders. It has several repeating sections. When editing a work order I have two repeating sections I would like to set up so that the user may only either delete or add lines - but not edit existing lines. On the other repeating section I would like to make it so that one field in the section is protected (no edit allowed as it is part of the key) but allow editing the other fields.

I tried playing with the data.rowNumber field in the enable expression property but it seemed to either enable all the rows in the section or disable all the rows.

Thanks.

Glenn Knott

[Davidk]

Re: How can I selectively allow adding/editing rows in Dialog repeating section?

I started having a look at this and, although you can get parts of this done in a dialog... and maybe even all of it, I'd suggest you're crossing over into the complexity and power of a grid. Why not use a grid for this... just curious?

I'll post what I've discovered about using the dialog in the morning.

[gknott]

Re: How can I selectively allow adding/editing rows in Dialog repeating section?

I'm still getting my feet wet with all of this - but the primary reason I was using a dialog was so that when I save the data I can put it all in an SQL transaction. When adding a record - the primary key of the main table will be autogenerated and then this will be used as part of the key in the three detail tables. From what I read I thought this was best done in a dialog. Then I would like to reuse the dialog to edit as well. Can all this be done in a grid as well?

[Davidk]

Re: How can I selectively allow adding/editing rows in Dialog repeating section?

The new dialog is amazing... very powerful, but I think you'll wind up doing a lot more work in it, than you might in a grid.
So... you'll add the main record... then, because it's a SQL auto-increment key, you'll need to go get that key for use in your detail records, as part of a multi-part key, I presume.
I've always thought that using an auto-increment key from one table as part of a multi-part key in another table was a big dangerous. If anything happens to the main table and it needs to be regenerated, doesn't the auto-increment key potentially get changed, thereby messing up your detail tables? I know I'm going way off topic, but wanted to clarify this first.

[gknott]

Re: How can I selectively allow adding/editing rows in Dialog repeating section?

I understand your point with the auto-increment. I'm accessing data on an AS400. I'm not sure about other databases but there is an SQL syntax (I don't know it offhand) that lets you override the auto-increment if you need to manually insert records into the table. You would just need to reset the number where it starts the auto-increment again.

I may have figured out a way to do handle the selective editing. I have a date stamp on each detail record. When I populate the dialog I can include this datestamp in a hidden field in the repeating section. Then in the enable expression property I can check to see if there is anything in the date field to determine whether or not to allow editing fields in that row. The date will exist on previously entered detail records but won't on new records until they are saved. From the initial testing I've done this morning is seems to work. It's a bit of work but may serve my needs.

What I'm trying to avoid is having users have to enter and save the header record and then go back in and save the detail records. I certainly appreciate your thoughts and comments.