JoeStangarone
Moderator
Registered: 11/30/05
Posts: 26
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| | 07/10/07 at 04:46 PM | Reply with quote | #1 |
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Many times developers want to guide users through selection criteria using drop down lists populated with valid values from the data-base. When multiple run-time selection criteria appear and the application narrows down the list of valid values in each drop down list based on what was entered in the last, we call this "forward filtered".
For example, if you have drop-down lists for state, county and city, choosing a particular state would repopulate the drop down lists for county and city to include only the counties and cities that are in that state.
There are many ways to accomplish this, but our new Web 2.0 report templates make it real easy. Here is an example of such an application. Anything you choose in one drop-down will narrow down available values in the other drop-downs based on the data in the data-base.
All we have to do to build the forward filter drop-downs in Web 2.0 reports is to assign the selection criteria field a user defined control code of "B". A user defined control code of "A" would give you a normal drop-down in ascending order without the forward filtering.
There is one other "magical" thing we did in this example that you may find interesting and useful. You will notice that the final application is a report with graph (3 graphs in fact). We have not yet published the Web 2.0 report with graph template. But we have published the standard Web 2.0 report template.
What we did was to build two identical reports. The first is using the standard Web 2.0 report template to build our forward filtered prompt page. We then modify one line on that page to call the second report (with graph) when the "Run Report" button is clicked.
That modification is as follows. We changed this line
Code:
<input type="submit" NAME="btn_search" value="Run Report" class="button">
to this in the report prompt page.
Code:
<input onclick="document.FORM_R00019.action = 'MRCSALESPT.R00011s';" type="submit" NAME="btn_search" value="Run Report" class="button">
Fast, easy, fun, and effective. Try it, and get something productive done today!
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fanmechanic
Registered: 06/27/08
Posts: 7
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| | 11/24/08 at 04:17 PM | Reply with quote | #2 |
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| Is there a way to do the same thing for drop down lists created as external objects? This would be for use in a maintainer application. Based on drop downs, or external look-up retrievals, filter other drop downs or look-ups. I think I can try to manual adjust the external look-up call in the painter's source view, but the drop downs don't seem to have code there. |
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JoeStangarone
Moderator
Registered: 11/30/05
Posts: 26
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| | 11/25/08 at 09:09 AM | Reply with quote | #3 |
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I recently did something like that, but not using drop down list external objects.
Instead, I used a web 2.0 single record maintenance program, this AJAX post, and a web 2.0 multi-record inquiry that I formatted as a drop down list.
I was thinking about publishing it, but it was a little tricky getting the multi-record inquiry formatted to work with the AJAX code.
The way it worked was, a user chose a value in a drop down box from the maintenance program, which fired off the AJAX request to re-fill the second drop down box on the maintenance program. It made for a very slick user interface.
Joe |
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