I want to create a form for an entity which has a many attributes. To ensure the ease of data entry, I want to split that form in multiple pages (for example 2 or 3 pages).
Let's take the ad entity example:
In page 1, the user will enter the ad text
In page 2, the user will enter his contact
In page 3, the user will provide the (X,Y) position of the ad
This split will require saving the available data (inserting in the database) in the 1st page before moving to the next page. Unfortunately, This is not possible due to constraints.
The question is: Is any documentations or any examples that solve this issue?
If no documentation is available, do you think it is better to split my entity in n entities in order to have one entity per page?
Thanks for you help.
You probably should use CraueFormFlowBundle. It provides facilities for building multi-step forms.
You can create one form type for an entire flow, or one form type per step.
It's very easy to setup. Everything is explained here.
You don't have to split your entity, but your form : create 3 forms, each containing the property needed from the ad entity.
You'll need to :
persist (and not flush) the $ad object at every step inside your controller
pass the $ad object as an argument when forwarding inside your controller
flush the $ad object in the last step
In pseudo-code, your controller would look like this :
public function newAdStep1() {
new Ad() // New instance of $ad
new formStep1($ad) // The first form containing only the ad text field
// The form was filled, manage it...
form->isValid()? {
persist($ad); // Persist the first part of your ad object
forward(newAdStep2, $ad) // Go on to step 2, your $ad object as an argument
}
// ... or display step1 to user
createView createAdStep1.html.twig('form' => $form);
}
public function newAdStep2($ad) {
new formStep2($ad); // Now the second form, containing the "contact" fields
isValid ? {
persist($ad)
forward(newAdStep3, $ad)
}
createView createAdStep2($form, $ad); // Your $ad object needs to be sent to the view
}
public function newAdStep3($ad) {
new formStep3($ad); // Third and last form, containing the (X,Y) fields
isValid ? {
$em->persist($ad);
$em->flush(); // Your instance of $ad can be stored in database now
return('success !');
}
return view createAdStep3($form, $ad);
}
You could store all the submitted data in a session or temporary table, then persist it all together at the end. However, I do my best to avoid extra work like this.
I think it may well be that your form steps follow the order by which the constraints dictate.
Saying that, sometimes I think this kind of problem can be solved by making a better design or process decision. i.e. limit the number of questions or only ask the vital ones at first. Without knowing the ins and outs it's hard to know whether this can be done.
Related
I'm using WooCommerce Subscriptions on a site to provide team-based memberships. I'd like to ensure that the owner of the Subscription matches the owner of the team (one user to rule them all...!)
It's possible to do this via admin by using the customer dropdown fields.
So, I have been trying to set this programmatically. As I understand it, there are getter and setter methods for all the Subscription data (and as a Subscription is extended from WC_Order, those methods should work too). However, I can't figure out what method to use to make this change.
I've tried creating both a subscription and an order instance from a subscription ID, but neither of the methods I've tried below work:
set_user_id(456)
set_customer_id(456)
When I print_r() the Subscription instance, the original customer_id is still there under the data array:
WC_Subscription Object
(
[data:protected] => Array
(
...
[customer_id] => 123
)
...
)
Given that the array is protected, I'm guessing there's a setter method I haven't tried yet. Can someone please help me with what type of instance and setter method I need for this please?
Cheers!
I'm pleased to say I've solved this one myself - posting here to hopefully help someone else from banging their heads against the walls!
Turns out I was doing everything correctly, I just wasn't calling the save() method after I made my changes......! D'oh!
I'm quite used to functions in WordPress having immediate effect - a valid call to update_post_meta, for example, will take effect straight away.
Instead, WooCommerce stores changes via getters/setters within the local instance created through WC_Order (or other abstractions). These are only saved to the database* when you call the save() method. I believe this is to help prevent unnecessary database calls.
*or data store if you're doing something very fancy.
Code example for those who need it, for an order ID '123' and a new user ID '456':
// Create order instance
$order_instance = wc_get_order(123);
// Set new customer id
$order_instance->set_customer_id(456);
// Save changes
$order_instance->save();
// To echo data back, use the get_data() method to create an array of data, which you can assign however needed. For example:
$order_data = $order_instance->get_data();
$customer_id = $order_data['customer_id'];
echo 'customer number = ' . $customer_id;
I found the information about why the data requires manually saving (it's only stored in the local instance) from the very helpful doc at Advanced Woo:
"Setter methods update information in the WC_Data object held in working memory. However, one of the Database Operations Methods must be called to make the change in the database."
https://advancedwoo.com/topic/wc_data-and-data-storage-manipulate/#/setters
I am trying to build sth pretty simple, but I try to do it the correct way. But I struggle to figure out what is best.
I have a process chain where the user has to fill in some fields in different forms. Sometimes it depends from the user inputs which form the user is shown next.
[HttpGet]
public IActionResult Form1(Form1Vm f1vm)
{
return View(f1vm);
}
[HttpPost]
[ActionName("Form1")]
public IActionResult Form1Post(Form1Vm f1vm)
{
//process the data etc
//prepare the new viewmodel for the next form view (f2vm)
//Option1:
return View("Form2", f2vm);
//Option2:
return RedirectToAction("Form2", f2vm);
//for Option 2 I would need an additional HttpGet Action Method in which I
//would have to call Modelstate.Clear(); in order to not have the
//immediate validation errors on page load
//also all the properties of my viewmodel are passed as get parameters
//what looks pretty nasty for me
}
//More form views action methods should be added here...:
What is the better way? As mentioned in my comments above I have quite a big disadvantage for using the RedirectToAction option. However if I use the direct View(); call, I don't take care on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post/Redirect/Get and the user cannot simply refresh a page without getting a warning that his form is submitted once again.
Do I miss another way or don't see something obvious?
Edit: I just thought about a 3rd way, which I have seen quite often: Not transfering the whole VM to a HttpGet method but only the ID. I'd then have to load all the data stored previously directly from the db, map it again to my new VM and then call the View(); with this VM. Right now I think this is the "best" solution, however I feel like it is pretty laborious...
As per the dicussions, I would suggest using depending on your preference :
1) Save to db at the end of each form post and as you suggested use the I'd to redirect to a GET.
2) Depending on the the number of form pages and your requirements, retrieving values that a form needs on the get would be standard practice. This ensures that if a user drops off a form at any stage you can then start them off where they left off.
3) I wouldn't setup the viewmodel for the next form in the post of the previous. Generally as part of the single responsibility principle you want to ensure that your methods have only one reason to change.
4) PostRedirectGet pattern should be implemented with this to ensure data is not saved multiple times if a user refreshes after a post.
I currently get an item in a collection for a user like so:
me.user = Backbone.Collection.Users.collection().get(id);
This returns the default set of attribute required in the app. On the user profile page, I want to show additional attributes that aren't necessary anywhere else.
How can I get an item in a collection (which queries the server) with additional attributes that I can specify?
Thanks
So to go along with the comment, what I think you want is to produce extra models instead of creating two user models, one with redundant + extra data.
One way you could do this is to give a relationship between different models.
Say a user model consists of simply a name and email. That's fine and dandy but you also want to render a user profile on the page (or whatever 'extras' you intend.) This seems like a good opportunity to create a separate model representing the extra data you desire.
You can do it a few ways. For example, if every user has a profile you could bake it into your user model. Something like when you create a user model:
user.profile = new Profile(); // model
I've seen some people put other models inside a model's attributes user.set('profile', new Profile()) but I'm not sure if this is a great idea. I like to keep my model attributes isolated to just that model.
Each profile model would have a url that corresponds to the model.id.
So then you could just user.profile.fetch() and use that profile attributes to populate the data in your view. Maybe it does something like /user/1/profile
Another aspect about your question that I think you might be alluding to is sending data from the server in one go when you fetch the collection. Maybe your server replies with data like this:
[{"name":"Jake", "email":"j#stack.com", "profile":"{"aboutme":"Some story"}"}, ... ]
and the profile data is only available for those who have it etc. In this case, you can then use the parse() function to pull out that extra data out and doing something before sending the name and email attributes through to the model set method.
Although, recently I think I read that using the parse to do stuff with the extra data is bad form. Override set So instead of parsing, you might just want to save that for namespacing and then in your overridden set method do something like:
set: function(attributes, options) {
if (!_.isUndefined(this.profile) && attributes.profile) {
this.profile = new Profile();
this.profile.set(attributes.profile);
} else if (attributes.profile) {
this.profile.set(attributes.profile);
}
delete attributes.profile;
return Backbone.Model.prototype.set.call(this, attributes, options);
}
You can do something similar for really unique users such as the main user using your app. When I instantiate a user model for my app (the one representing user him/herself) I also initialize a few other special models only that user would have (like an auth model for fetching authentication data etc.)
I'm not sure if I hit what you were asking but I hope I hit something.
Is collection an instance already, and I assume so? If so, you should only do:
me.user = Backbone.Collection.Users.collection.get(id);
I.e. removing the brackets () after collection.
I have 3 domains :
- EligibilityInclusion
- EligibilityExclusion
- EligibilitySummary
I build also eligibility.gsp (mix use of 3 templates : _inclusion, _exclusion, _summary ; and I'm also using JQueryUI tab to render each domain in one tab).
Everything fine for viewing, but now I would like to use only one controller to create, edit, list and show.
How can I handle 3 domains via only one controller?
(for example, I would like to use EligibilityController to handle my 3 domains)
What is the best usage:
- binding multiple objets?
- use command objects?
Unfortunately command objects don't help with the input model for a view, they are specifically designed to aide the output model for the binding and validation of request parameters. However you can roll your own View Model based on a command object if you are prepared to delve into some meta programming to to achieve the data binding for the creation of the view model.
Here's a basic approach. The following code constructs the Command Object which you can then pass as the model to the view in the controller:
class ItemCommand {
// attribute declarations ...
public void bindData(def domainInstance){
domainInstance.properties.keySet().each { prop ->
if(prop == "class"){
// not needed
} else if(prop == "metaClass") {
// not needed
} else if(this.properties.containsKey(prop)){
this."${prop}" = domainInstance."${prop}"
}
}
}
This will allow you to bind the data from different domain objects by calling bindData for each of the domain objects.
This is the essence of the solution I use. You will need to store the ids of the different domain objects (and the version attribute) as hidden fields if you intend to do updates to the domain objects.
You can't just submit multiple objects, if some of them have same field names, right?
I'd try to join the 3 objects into single Command with 3 fields, like: inclusionInstance1, inclusingInstance2, summaryInstance1, and name fields in gsp-s respectively, like name='command.inclusionInstance1.name'. Assigning command.properties = params should work when submitting the form.
Grails offers the ability to automatically create and bind domain objects to a hasMany List, as described in the grails user guide.
So, for example, if my domain object "Author" has a List of many "Book" objects, I could create and bind these using the following markup (from the user guide):
<g:textField name="books[0].title" value="the Stand" />
<g:textField name="books[1].title" value="the Shining" />
<g:textField name="books[2].title" value="Red Madder" />
In this case, if any of the books specified don't already exist, Grails will create them and set their titles appropriately. If there are already books in the specified indices, their titles will be updated and they will be saved. My question is: is there some easy way to tell Grails to remove one of those books from the 'books' association on data bind?
The most obvious way to do this would be to omit the form element that corresponds to the domain instance you want to delete; unfortunately, this does not work, as per the user guide:
Then Grails will automatically create
a new instance for you at the defined
position. If you "skipped" a few
elements in the middle ... Then Grails
will automatically create instances in
between.
I realize that a specific solution could be engineered as part of a command object, or as part of a particular controller- however, the need for this functionality appears repeatedly throughout my application, across multiple domain objects and for associations of many different types of objects. A general solution, therefore, would be ideal. Does anyone know if there is something like this included in Grails?
removeFrom*
Opposite of the addTo method in that it removes instances from an association.
Examples
def author = Author.findByName("Stephen King")
def book = author.books.find { it.title = 'The Stand' }
author.removeFromBooks(book)
Just ran into this issue myself. It's easy to solve. Grails uses java.util.Set to represent lists. You can just use the clear() method to wipe the data, and then add in the ones you want.
//clear all documents
bidRequest.documents.clear()
//add the selected ones back
params.documentId.each() {
def Document document = Document.get(it)
bidRequest.documents.add(document)
log.debug("in associateDocuments: added " + document)
};
//try to save the changes
if (!bidRequest.save(flush: true)) {
return error()
} else {
flash.message = "Successfully associated documents"
}
I bet you can do the same thing by using the "remove()" method in the case that you don't want to "clear()" all the data.
For a good explanation of deleting a collection of child objects with GORM have a look at the Deleting Children section of this blog post - GORM gotchas part 2
It's recommended reading, as are parts 1 and 3 of the series.
I am just starting to learn Grails myself and saw your question as an interesting research exercise for me. I do not think you can use the conventional data binding mechanism - as it fills in the blanks using some kind of Lazy map behind the scenes. So for you to achieve your goal your "save" method (or is it a function?) is unlikely to contain anything like:
def Book = new Book(params)
You need a mechanism to modify your controller's "save" method.
After some research, I understand you can modify your scaffolding template which is responsible for generating your controller code or runtime methods. You can get a copy of all the templates used by Grails by running "grails install-templates" and the template file you would need to modify is called "Controller.groovy".
So in theory, you could modify the "save" method for your whole application this way.
Great! You would think that all you need to do now is modify your save method in the template so that it iterates through the object entries (e.g. books) in the params map, saving and deleting as you go.
However, I think your required solution could still be quite problematic to achieve. My instinct tells me that there are many reasons why the mechanism you suggest is a bad idea.
For one reason, off the top of my head, imagine you had a paginated list of books. Could that mean your "save" could delete the entire database table except the currently visible page? Okay, let us say you manage to work out how many items are displayed on each page, what if the list was sorted so it was no longer in numerical order - what do you delete now?
Maybe multiple submit buttons in your form would be a better approach (e.g. save changes, add, delete). I have not tried this kind of thing in Grails but understand actionSubmit should help you achieve multiple submit buttons. I certainly used to do this kind of thing in Struts!
HTH
I'm just running into this same issue.
My application's domain is quite simple: it has Stub objects which have a hasMany relationship with Header objects. Since the Header objects have no life of their own, they're entirely managed by the Stub controller and views.
The domain class definitions:
class Stub {
List headers = new ArrayList();
static hasMany = [headers:Header]
static mapping = {headers lazy: false}
}
class Header {
String value
static belongsTo = Stub
}
I've tried the "clear and bind" method but the end result is that the "cleared" objects are left over in the database and grails will just create new instances for the ones that were not removed from the relationship. It does seem to work from an user's perspective, but it will leave lots of garbage objects in the database.
The code in the controller's update() method is:
stubInstance.headers.clear()
stubInstance.properties = params
An example: while editing the -many side of this relationship I have (for a given Stub with id=1):
<g:textField name="headers[0].value" value="zero" id=1 />
<g:textField name="headers[1].value" value="one" id=2 />
<g:textField name="headers[2].value" value="two" id=3 />
in the database there are 3 Header instances:
id=1;value="zero"
id=2;value="one"
id=3;value"two"
after removing header "one" and saving the Stub object the database will have headers:
id=1;value="zero"
id=2;value="one"
id=3;value"two"
id=4;value="zero"
id=5;value="two"
and the Stub object will now have an association with Headers with id=4 and id=5...
Furthermore, without the clearing of the list, if an index is not present in the submitted request.headers list, on data binding grails will keep the existing object at that location unchanged.
The solution that occurs to me is to bind the data, then check the Stub's headers for elements that are not present in the submitted list and remove them.
This looks like a pretty simple scenario, isn't there any built-in functionality to address it?
It's a bit overkill to have to write your own synchronization logic for maintaining relationships, especially when the quirks that make it non-trivial are caused by grails itself.
What about deletion, shouldn't the clear()'ed elements be gone from the database? Am I missing something in the relationship or domain object definitions?
class Stub {
List headers = new ArrayList();
static hasMany = [headers:Header]
static mapping = {
headers lazy: false
**headers cascade: "all-delete-orphan"**
}
}
class Header {
String value
static belongsTo = Stub
}
I have added the cascade property on the owning side of relationship and Now if you try to save the stub, it will take care of removing deleted items from the collection and delete them from the DataBase.