[jifty-devel] re: Re: design pattern for form table input

[Todd Chapman]

On 11/10/07, Steve H <s_t_e_v_e_h at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Todd
>
> > Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 16:18:10 -0500
> > From: "Todd Chapman"
> > Subject: Re: [jifty-devel] Re: design pattern for form table input
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> > Isn't that what the Jifty admin interface does? You might want to take
> > a look at it's implementation.
>
> I can't see where the AdminUI does what I was looking for.  For example, the rows of records it can update via "Manage records" don't actually provide Input fields (although it does provide the links/buttons on each row)... similarly, the list of Models and Actions on the "Database Administration" page is a list of Links... not Input types, such as .
> Maybe there is somewhere else in the AdminUI you had in mind?   The question asked (pasted below) is specifically where a given Input of the same name appears multiple times ... very common for things like radio buttons and check boxes, where any number of those Input types can appear, all with the same Name= ... so, in the case of a checkbox for example, all valies associated with the checked items with that same name= appear in an array in the CGI, for that name=.  In my case, I was wanting to input other types too, e.g. text.  The thing being that browsers only send the input's that have data/values in them... so, unless otherwise provided for, you can come unstuck if any of the items that share that name have no value... as the subsequent ones in the array of values for that name will then be out of alignment.   With checkboxes etc it is usually mitigated by predefined data/value/s that can be returned, whereas with text values, it's user data and up to them... hence typically done by appending a suffix to the Name= so they don't turn up in the CGI as an array against the same name.  ...e.g. you can have input fields called qty_1, qty_2, etc... then look for them in the list of fields given to the CGI via /qty_\d+)/  ...thing is, with Jifty having these things pre-declared in , it seemed to rule out that technique... unless pre-declaring a finite number of them and keeping to that number by Paging everything.  Another way might be to not have Inputs for each row, rather to have a link that will raise some background dhtml to input the data and post it off.
> ...hence I was asking if there were any Jifty design patterns for this sort of stuff.... as it clearly doesn't handle it "out of the box", given the display of refs on subsequent lines.
>

Steve, I don't have an answer for you and would definitely like to
hear what Jesse or someone else deep in Jifty dev has to say. I'll try
to poke someone on IRC.

-Todd