Tutorials

The duplicate action allows the user to create a new record using the values of an existing record.

Duplicate in Form

Applications generated with Code On Time will have the Duplicate action available in the context menu of a row in grid view.

When the action is selected, createForm1 will be activated. Values from the duplicated row will populate the fields.

The default Duplicate action is configured to use createForm1 view as an argument.

Duplicate in Grid

Let’s create a Duplicate action that will create a new row in grid view.

Start the Project Designer. Switch to the Controllers tab in the Project Explorer. Right-click on Employees / Actions / ag1 (Grid) action group node and press New Action.

Assign the following values to the new action:

Press OK to save. On the toolbar, press Browse.

Navigate to the Employees page and activate the context menu for a row. Click on Duplicate in Grid.

A new row will be created with the same values as the selected row.

Note that there are no Insert or Cancel actions available. You will need to add these actions with When Last Command Name of “Duplicate” in order to allow the user to save or cancel the record.

Adding Insert and Cancel actions

In the Project Explorer, right-click on Employees / Actions / ag8 (Row) node, and press New Action.

Assign the following values:

Click OK, and create another action:

Press OK to save. On the toolbar, press Browse.

Navigate to Employees page, and select the Duplicate in Grid action from the context menu. The new row will now have Insert and Cancel actions underneath.

When the Allow Nulls property on a field is marked as false, the client library will prevent the update or insertion of a blank value.

The application generator will set Allow Nulls to “false” for all fields based on mandatory table columns when the baseline application is constructed.

For example, the Employees table does not allow null values in First Name field, but does allow null values for Title field. An asterisk (*) is placed next to the field name to indicate required fields.

If the value is cleared in First Name field and user attempts to save the record, the client library will prevent the update and display a message next to the field.

Let’s allow nulls in First Name and prevent nulls in Title.

Start the Project Designer. Switch to the controllers tab in the Project Explorer and double-click on Employees / Fields / FirstName field node.

Enable Allow Nulls:

Press OK to save the field. Notice that the asterisk (*) next to the FirstName field node has been removed to indicate that the field is no longer required.

Double-click on Employees / Fields / Title field node.

Mark the field as required:

Press OK to save. On the Project Designer toolbar, press Browse.

Navigate to the Employees page and edit the details of a record. The First Name field is not marked as required, but the Title is.

Clear the values from both First Name and Title fields, and try to save the record by pressing OK. A message will be displayed next to the Title field.

Enter a value in Title and save again. This time the action will be passed to the server. However, the FirstName column in Employees table is still marked as required in the database. An error message will be raised by the database engine and displayed at the top of the page. Changes will not be persisted.