Phil - Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:42 AM:
Since using Innovator, one thing that I have found that is somewhat limiting is the configurability of the main item grid. Am I missing something somewhere? Here are some of the things I would like to be able to do, but can't seem to figure out how without creating my own separate form to replace the default main item listing grid.
1. Add events to clicking on a row. I would like to add a right click menu option for when you right click on a row in the grid.
2. Alter the searching/ordering capabilities. For example, I have a field that is of data type List (its a list of names). That field shows up on the main grid as a drop down, and there doesnt seem to be any easy way for me to change that to a text field on the grid.
I am sure there are work-arounds for my 2nd item (I thought about creating a separate property that is a string and just copying the values to that, and then using the string property on the grid), but I was hoping there was a cleaner solution.
Thanks for the help yet again.
RobMcAveney - Thursday, May 20, 2010 12:22 PM:
Agreed that there are some limitations. There's always a tradeoff between complete configurability and trying to keep things simple. We'll give you more configurability in the (hopefully near) future.
- You should add an Action to the ItemType to put a new entry on the right-mouse menu.
- You're on the right track for a workaround. Create a new federated property and use OnBeforeGet and OnAfterGet methods to copy the property values back and forth. Not ideal, but it's not much code either.
Phil - Thursday, May 20, 2010 1:54 PM:
Thanks for the reply Rob.
I will probably put off question number 1 for about a month. I plan on attending the API training in Boston in June, and I figure I will bring that question with me to see if I can see how a solution would be implemented first hand.
As for the second issue...I don't really understand how to implement federated properties. Is there any sort of tutorial on that somewhere? Here is the jist of the situation:
I have a property called names which is bound to a list. The list is setup as FirstName LastName
Unfortunately when the users are on the main grid, they want 2 things:
1. Ability to search for names without using drop down list
2. Ability to order by the last name, instead of the first name (which is what it does by default because of the setup of the list)
I'm not quite sure on the best way to tackle each of these scenarios. I know some ways to "hack" my way around them, but I would prefer to do something that is a little more eliquent.
Peter Borsje - Thursday, December 5, 2013 6:51 AM:
Hi Rob,
Can you define "near future" a little more? :)
I am also looking for a more configurable main grid.
The users would like to see related ItemType information together with information from the source and the related item in the main grid.
If this information could be shown together in the maingrid then the user can easily filter and sort for information they need.
Of course I can present a related itemtype on the maingrid and than expand the related itemtype with a lot of extra foreign properties to get the needed information from the source and related itemtype.
However, I find this not a good solution.
It creates a lot of redundant information in the database and it is probably not good for the performance.
What other options are there that give the possibility for filtering and sorting?
When can we expect a more configurable maingrid?
What possibilities gives Aras 10 and Dojo for configuring the maingrid?
Kind regards,
Peter Borsje
aponceot - Thursday, December 5, 2013 3:24 PM:
Hi Peter,
I don't exactly know your use case, but there is a lot of possibility to expose data in the main grid to display information to the user.
We are doing that everyday for our customers. As I understand it you want to mix information from an Item and its relationships If it is the case, you can end up with a cardinality problem (one to many relations)
Some way to achieve it :
Using foreign properties (won't duplicate data as foreign is doing a Join between tables)
Using federated properties that you populate onAfterGet with a Server Side method (no column in table)
Using a completely federated ItemType where you can implement your desired queries and display informations you need (the federated ItemType won't have any table in the DB)
Using a custom html page where you can implement Aras Client Side Controls (Grid / toolbar ...) you'll feed the grid with data from AML queries
Aras 10 won't give you more flexibility in term of what is configurable. But keep in mind that pretty much everything is already doable. As of today there is no business or functional need that we failed implementing.
I hope this will give you ideas to implement what you need...
Peter Borsje - Friday, December 6, 2013 1:10 AM:
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for your ideas!
If you look at the performance of those 4 options how would you rank them according to your experience?
Peter