Blog: Posts from May, 2012

The simplest method to search for data in Code On Time web applications is Quick Find.

Quick Find is located on the left side of the action bar above grid views. It allows searching for values in the visible fields. The application will split the search text by spaces and use each word as a filtering parameter when executing a query.

For example, let’s find any customer that contains the text “owner”. Enter the text in the Quick Find, and press Enter on your keyboard. You can see that we now have a list of records that contain “owner” in the Contact Title field.

Let’s find all owners in Mexico. In the Quick Find box, type “owner mexico”, and press Enter on your keyboard. This will fetch a shorter list. All data rows will contain both words in the fields. For example, “owner” is found in Contact Title, and “mexico” is found in Country.

The order of words in the query does not matter. For example, search for “france owner”. The search will find all three owners from France.

You can also search for numeric values in any field of the record. Switch to the Products page, and search for “40”. The first product has “40” in Units On Order. The second product has a Unit Price of “40”. The third product has “40” in Quantity Per Unit.

Numbers and words can be mixed in the search query. Search for “40 biscuit”. The search query found two records that have those parameters.

The user input is never incorporated in the SQL text, eliminating possibility of an SQL Injection attack. Search for “drop database”. No records will be found, and the database will not be dropped. The application framework will include parameter names in the query and pass the user-entered criteria as parameter values.

You can clear any filter by either clicking on the “x” icon on the right side of the filter detail bar, or by clicking on the filter description.

Developers can also configure “hidden” fields to participate in the Quick Find.

Code On Time web application generator assigns Lookup item style to all foreign key fields.

The Lookup item style has powerful searching and filtering capabilities, but may require several clicks to find a record. A speedy alternative to the lookup is the Auto Complete items style. The user types in a value in the field, and a list of matching field entries will be displayed.

Open the Project Designer. In the Explorer, switch to Controllers tab. Double-click on Orders / Fields / EmployeeID field node.

Change the following properties:

Press OK to save the field. On the tool bar, click Browse to generate the application.

When it opens in your default web browser, navigate to Orders page and edit an order. Click on the dropdown arrow, and you will see a list of all options.

Close the dropdown and type in the letter “d”. A list of matching employees whose last name start with “D” will appear.

Now type “o”, and that list of employees will narrow down to those that have last names that start with “Do”.

You can now hit Tab or Enter on the keyboard, or click on the list item, to insert it into the field.

If the entered text does not match to any items in the list, then the input field will revert to the original value.

Let’s make this field take less real estate on the users screen.

Switch back to the Designer. In the Project Explorer, double-click on Orders / Views / editForm1 / c1 – Orders / EmployeeID data field node.

Change the following setting:

Press OK to save the data field, and click Browse on the tool bar.

Navigate to Orders page, and edit a record. The data field is now twenty characters wide.