This is my first post, so be gentle :)
I am developing an ASP.NET web user control that will allow a user to type in some free text in a multi-line textbox and the application will asynchronously stem the words and use Ajax to submit them to a web service for further processing. The web service processes the words and returns a number of choices (id, title) back to the user.
Naturally, I used the AutoCompleteExtender control which basically covered all my needs but one. Once a user makes a selection from the popup window, I need to keep track of the selected item, BUT, I do NOT wish for my typed-in text to disappear or be replaced by the item selected by the user (as what AutoCompleteExtender seems to do by default).
Does this make any sense? I want the "OnClientItemSelected" event to fire (so as to know which item was selected by the user), BUT, I don't want to have to "lose" the content typed-in by the user.
Can anyone help?
Thank you for your time.
Use the DelimiterCharacters="" "" property in your extender mark-up.
Basically, what seems to happen, is that the extender will recognise a new "suggestion" after it sees your specified delimiting character. In this case, " " (a normal space.)
You can also use any other delimiter, I.e ",".
Related
I have an input form in which users submit multiple types of information to the database.
Is there any way I could provide an example input of what should go in each field, upon the form loading?
Some fields I'd expect a small paragraph of text, others are dropdowns. The dropdown fields I wouldn't need to put an example of course, just the string text fields. If I try and include an example in the Default value for example, it would save the default value, which I wouldn't want.
Any help is greatly appreciated - It's worth noting I'm quite new to Access & coding in general.
I agree you probably don't want to use default values, or actually enter dummy data into the actual controls for the reason you mention: saving dummy values to the table.
A few possibilities:
Use a custom tooltip. You can do this by editing a control's "controltip text" property. Keep in mind that tooltips are only visible to the user when they hover the cursor over the specific control.
Add a label below the input control that describes the information that should be put in the control. This would always be visible, but can quickly cause your form to be cluttered and difficult to read.
I should say though, that you want to attempt to make your forms as intuitive as possible. For example, if you expect a paragraph of text, make the textbox much larger than a control only expecting a 6 character string. The more you are concerned with UX (user experience), the greater the chance that users will pick up on expectations using subtle design hints. I highly recommend researching the topic if you are concerned that your users will be unable to decipher the purpose of your form/controls. Be sure to check out the UX page on SE.
Furthermore, you can utilize a control's "AfterUpdate" event to validate the input placed in the control as soon as the user moves away from it. For example, you could test if the input IsNumeric() to validate that numbers were entered instead of text. If text is found, you can use a message box to alert the user, and move the cursor back to the control that is invalid.
Of course, that's the customized approach to just using the control's validation rules. The only issue I have had with the standard validation rules is user exhaustion. It can be irritating for a user to deal with validation messages when they are already aware that a typo was made. With an unbound entry form that requires a save button, I usually batch all control validation into the save procedure. This allows the user free reign to skip controls in the tab order without being blocked by constant validation exceptions.
So ordinarily the element I want to pick from a list would be populated on a page and I'd just find it and pick it. But I'm dealing with a control that doesn't populate list elements until some input has been stuck into a text box, after which it gives me a list of recommendations.
For an example of the kind of list I'm talking about think of Facebook's "People, Places, and Things" search field.
I want to plug a string into this text box, select the same string from the list of recommendations, and submit the form. The issue I'm having right now is I can't seem to get Mechanize to even recognize the field is there. I examine a dump of $mech->find_all_inputs and it isn't listed. Is this kind of field just beyond Mechanize's jurisdiction?
This control's magic comes via Javascript, and (as you know) WWW::Mechanize don't work with Javascript.
But you can find (with Firefox's HTTPFox extension for example) what request your browser sends to the target site than you get "recommendations" and make the same request (I'm sure this is POST) from your WWW::Mechanize object.
Basically, what pros/cons are there to using multiple forms in the same web page vs one form with multiple submit buttons? Any difference at?
Ah? Multiple submit buttons on a single form will all submit the entire form when pressed... there's really no advantage to having multiples, unless you're overriding how the submit process works so each button only submits it's own area. In this case they'd probably not even by submit buttons, but just buttons with sum JS code to handle submission.
Multiple forms are discrete spaces of data collection, each can have it's own submit button... but only one of them can be sent at a time (and depending on the browser you may loose what's in the other forms).
Neither approach is particularly good from a user interface perspective since it'll be confusing.
The real question is, what are you trying to do that prompts you to ask this?
The two behave differently and there are good reasons to choose one over the other.
Multiple Forms on a page allow you to send data to two different locations. A common example is to have an input form as the main focus of a page going to one location, and a search form that appears as part of the generic header/footer. These both go to separate locations and submit only the HTML form elements within their appropriate <form/>
Multiple submit buttons offer you the ability to give different purpose to a submitted set of form elements. E.g. One form may have a bunch of submit buttons all with name attributes, meaning you can add conditional logic on the server side to say: "Continue", go " Back" or even "Save for later". All reference only the form elements within it's parent tag.
Two side notes are: 1) You can't nest forms. 2) JavaScript can change this default behaviour if you wanted it to. :)
Edit: with reference to a comment you made, if you wanted to do without JavaScript (a wise choice while it's not needed), you could do some careful thinking and keep POSTing the form to itself. Each time checking which form button has been clicked (top tip, give them all the same name and you can just switch case through it) and do whatever you need to do, including performing validation. E.g: When they hit "add media", you'd save the media uploaded and return a reference of it to the screen as a hidden input. The user can then continue to add things to the other boxes and when complete, hit your save button, at which point you do all the main saving work and make sure you tie the uploaded file to it as well.
You effectively keep adding stuff to their screen until they hit the save and then you perform a save method and redirect to a thank you page (or whatever logic suits your scenario). :)
All fields in a form are sent when one of their submit button is clicked. It's for you to see if you need all fields or not.
It has been a while since I've touched GWT, but I was recently looking at GWT applications to see how they accomplished certain tasks. I noticed that if you go into AdWords (a GWT application), you can manipulate table information in-line. For example, if I go into my campaign and click the pencil icon next to the ad group, a little popup will appear allowing me to change the ad group's name ... except there's no identifying information anywhere in the DOM structure. No hidden fields, no id's snuck into the div elements.
What's going on here? I've been working with interactive tables, but I've always established a click handler on a class and stuck an ID in there so I can tell what I'm editing. I've always found this as unsatisfactory. Any ideas?
It uses a JavaScript variable to get a hold on the element directly when it's created. That variable can then be stored somewhere - as long as it's accessible directly or indirectly from the the global object (document), it can be retrieved later from there.
A simple pure JavaScript example would be:
document.myParagraph = document.createElement('p');
document.body.appendChild(myParagraph);
document.mySpan = document.createElement('span');
document.myParagraph.appendChild(mySpan);
...
document.mySpan.onclick = ...
I have a data entry form that when it closes opens another form for further updating the just newly entered data. However, at times no further update is necessary. How can I suppress the 2nd form from opening when there is no need for further update? Presently the form opens even when there are no recordsets present. (need a similar Event like for the report "On No Data")
Have a bit field such as a checkbox with default set to true open second form. Uncheck it to avoid the system from opening the next form. You will need to handle this in your code and check if that check box is checked or not.
Of course we will need more details such as why you are currently opening this second form...in addition, cant you check if any changes were made and if they were then open that second form else dont? Also what lang ?
Without knowing more about what you're working on, I'd say you would have to modify the process that shuts down the first form to check if the second form is needed. In .NET, for example, you could add code to the OnClosing event for a WinForm to check. If it's needed, open it as normal, if not then don't.
Subject: Tool Kits. Tool Kits consist of 1 or more tools. If tools already exist, no need for 2nd form to pop up. If tools are new, I need to fill in one of the 3 fields in the drop down listing. I like the idea of adding code to the OnClosing event, but do not understand what you mean by WinForm.