How to create a form with variable no. of field set - asp.net

I have to design a page for user information, for some background verification purpose, at my work. I need a set of fields for address, total count of which will be selected by user to update the form with that many fields. So, if user selects 3, form will have 3 set of address fields. Similar concept for work and education details.
Right now, I am passing the count to a handler page, which checks total count, and return it along with querystring, back to the main page. I am able to update the no. of fields, this way, but, all values are lost, once I return to the form. There are a lot of fields to even use session object for every value. Also, it resets the count of other such field set to 0. So, if I select 4 in address field, it renders four set of address fields, but fields for other details are gone.
I need to know, if it is possible to update the fields, using just one page, instead of creating a handler file to handle the redirect, so that I don't lose other data.
Sorry, for sounding a bit confusing. Will update the question, if needed.
Edit:
Similar blocks are there for education and work details. I want the update button to update the block, with that many fields, while retaining the values already entered by the user.
I have finally shifted the update code to one page. And the total count of blocks, is calculated by this way.
if request.form("addresscount") <> "" then
varaddresscount = request.form("addresscount")
else
varaddresscount = 1
end if
varaddresscount is used to loop through the html code which renders address fields. Even with this method, if I click on update button to change the total field count, every value entered by user is reset to default. Is there a way to retain the no. of fields without using session object, as there are way too many fields for which I have to store the value in session.

Why not have just a "add address" button that, whenever clicked, adds a extra set of input boxes using Javascript? That solves a lot of your problems regarding retaining the data on already filled in fields AND it makes it easier for the user.

Related

Table input for view

I would like to have the user enter order items on my order form as a table where they input the Qty and Prod #. I've not programmed with that type of field so a blank line would initially display for a new order. They would type a Qty and an item number in the fields and hit enter. When they hit enter from either field, what do I program to check the validity of the two fields. Plus I need the item number to be a drop down/type ahead field. Does anyone have an example of this type of thing they could send me? It would be looking at a view in the product catalog db. Also, after they enter an item to order, that "doc" should get stored/saved and a new blank line should open up.
What type of control do I need to use and should these items be stored in their own form or on the main order document? Could use some guidance here. Thanks.
The question you have is a little broad but I will make a couple suggestions if I can.
You have the main order doc. Then a repeat control with each item. Filter each item by a uniqueID that allows you to join the main doc to the child docs. Each item should be a separate document. You then need to make the items in the repeat control editable.
There is a lot of things going on here and I think you need to get started somewhere. I think the first step is to do a repeat control with response documents.Xpages, Inherited documents in view panel by using #Unique

getting textfield output partly unvisible

In a Drupal content type a need to get the output of a field partly unvisible. These are bank account details, the IBAN.
Normally the field shows 1234567. I need to get xxxx567. I need to show only the last 3 numbers/letters.
Also I need this output in field edit form.
On the display end you could change the output using a simple PHP function in the theme template by grabbing a substring of the field's last three digits and concatenating it with "xxxx" before printing.
You might also consider doing this at the formatter level by using the 'custom formatter' module perhaps?
https://drupal.org/project/custom_formatters
To do this on the edit screen is trickier. I suppose you could do a hook form alter to use PHP to change the field value, but I am afraid you will rewrite the field value when you save the node with the 'xxxx' instead of the real data.
I wonder if it would make sense to 1.) hide the actual field, 2.) create a dummy field that displays the text formatted as "xxxx567" to the user, and 3.) write some javascript that populates the hidden field with the visible field's value if it is changed. Presumably the form would still throw values if the hidden field did not meet formatting requirements.

filtering datagrids

In a simple scenario there is a webpage with a datagrid containing 2 columns; first name and country. There's a filter set on the grid to filter out all Australians. There's a form on the same page to add new records and a user decides to add someone from Australia. This record does not meet the filter criteria so would not normally display. However, this might be confusing from the users perspective as they might not have confidence that the person has been successfully added or have forgotten that the filter will mean the new entry is not displayed.
What is the best way to handle this from a usability perspective?:
display the new entry but leave the list in a state inconsistent
with the filter criteria?
filter out the new entry but risk confusing the user?
provide feedback to the user that the record was successfully
added but may be filtered out of the list?
?
Three tools I use, Mingle, Jira, and Quicken, use this implementation very effectively; a slight modification to your number 3:
Provide feedback to the user that the record was successfully added, but won't be shown, and provide a link to the record using its record identifier (record number + title).

Processing variable number of form fields

I am working on a form which displays information about orders. Each order has a unique id, but they are not necessarily sequential on the form. Also, the number of fields can vary (one field per row on the form). The input into the form will not be mapped straight into the database, but will be added to the current value in the database, and then saved. An example of the form is in the picture below - the callout on the right shows the id for each row.
I know how to generate the form like this, but I can't work out how I can easily process each of these rows reliably. I also know how to give each of the fields a unique identifier, like name="order-23" or name="order[23]", but how can I translate that name so that I can update the related record in the database?
EDIT: One solution I can think of would be to iterate through every form field in the FormCollection, and if the name of the field matches the pattern, then I will extract the number from that field-name and process it.
However, I feel that there must be a much easier way to go about it - this method would likely involve a fair bit of string processing on each field, and there would possibly fall over if I have to add extra fields for each row later on.
Don't you have a list of IDs after postback? I believe you should not depend on what IDs are actually sent from the form, as anybody could change the IDs on the form to whatever they want, so it's a security issue. So you should after postback have a list of IDs you want to update (the same list you used to create the form with). In that case, you know exactly what id string you should use to retrieve the value from FormCollection.
In case you really can't get the list of IDs you are going to update, just use the FormCollection iteration as you suggested in your comment. The string processing is not that expensive in comparation with all other stuff being done at request processing.
If you have the names, then simply read the values by using Request.Form["order-23"] or re-create the controls in page pre-init and you'll have access to the values in your save event directly through the created controls.
I've done this loads in my CMS.
Essentially i sort of cheated.
The idea is something like this ....
render the form to the client, then look at the source code gneerated.
You should see that it generated a form tag with an action attribute.
When you click the submit button the form will be sent to that url so in the case of an order submission you would post the page back to OrderPage.aspx?OrderId=xxxx
then on the server you would build an update statement for your db that contained something like ...
"Update orders where order id =" + request.querystring["OrderId"]
So how do you update the action ...
In the calling page lets say you have a link called "New Order", when that link is clicked you need to do 2 things ...
redirect to this page.
generate an order id for this new order.
ok the first is simple, simply link it to this page.
the second ...
if this page is not a postback if(!IsPostback) { /* get a new id */ } depending on your order id's this may involve generating a new guid or doing something like getting the next number in a list by doing a select max(id) from a db.
once you have this new id you should still be in the page_load event.
this.form.Action = this.form.Action + "?OrderId=" + yourNewOrderId;
... tada ...
Send page back to the client.
view the source.

Handling SortOrder fields in SQL Server

In a specific table I have a SortOrder integer field that tells my page in which order to display the data. There are sets of data in the this field (based on a CategoryID field), and each set will have its own ordering. Users can add/remove/update records in this table.
My question is what is the best way to manage this SortOrder field? I would like to "reseed" it everytime a record is deleted or updated. Is this something I should be using a trigger for? Or should my code handle it and manage the reseeding?
What I used to do is use only odd numbers in the SortOrder field so upon changing the order, I would add or subtract 3 from the current value of the modified item and then do a reseed (order the items again using odd number indexes). Also I used to reseed after every insert or delete.
All you really have to worry about is swapping any two fields. All new entries go to the end and i'm sure you've got a mechanism by which the user can change the order. The order change, move up or down, really is a swap with a neighboring field. All you really care about is that all the fields are sorted properly. Don't let a mathematical sense of aesthetic drive you into creating something overly complex. (You'll end up with holes in your sequence after deletes are made but that's OK. It's an internal sequence marker used for ORDER BY. the numbers don't need to be made contiguous.)

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