Report Or Submission Form For Searching?

[Farnsbarnes]

This could be a totally dumb question, but I'll risk it!

 

My interest is to search my table and show a report.  I don't wish to submit data to the table.

I've been using submission forms for my search fields.  The reason for this is because I wanted to keep my results page on the same web page as the search fields.  Submission forms allow me to stay on 'same page', while report datapages force you to show results on a new datapage.

 

Ideally I would have preferred to use a report datapage for the search fields, mainly because there are no silly problems in trying to get multi-select cascade listboxes to update in real time from a multi-select parent listbox (a problem faced by many on this forum and not yet properly solved).

 

So is it possible to use a report datapage with a little bit of JS code, that effectively prevents its results page from being generated (as possible with a submission form)?   Obviously I'd then pass my parameters to a separate results datapage, just as I do now.

 

Thanks

[svitlanataran]

Hi, please read the article http://howto.caspio.com/tech-tips-and-articles/parameters/how-to-separate-search-page-and-results-page-into-two-different-webpages/

[Farnsbarnes]

Hi Matilda.  What I was trying to do was use a report to contain my search fields (eg tabular report) for the specific reasons I mentioned.  Unless I've misread it, the article you mentioned talks about a submission form being used.

 

What I want is to use a report (eg tabular), coded so that it does NOT create a separate results page.  Note that the standard Caspio GUI does not offer that option for reports... it only offers this for submission forms.    I'll then pass parameters to a separate results page and deploy everything on a single web page.

 

Why do this?  Because with a report, multi-select cascading listbox fields work in real time with multi-select parent listbox fields. In submission forms they don't work properly.

 

Thanks

[svitlanataran]

In case of using multi-select cascading listbox fields in search form, I would recommend you using one report datapage without separating search and results page.

 

As far as I know, it's impossible to use only search page, taken from a report datapage.

 

Search page passes parameters only to results page on the same report.

 

Of course, you could hide the results page,  but it will not solve the problem with redirection and passing parameters.

[Farnsbarnes]

Thanks for the clarifications Matilda.  It was worth a try!

 

I guess the only question remaining is whether a report page and its results page can somehow be coded to appear on the same web page.   Now that would solve everything.

[MayMusic]

Take a look at this HowTo post: http://howto.caspio.com/tech-tips-and-articles/parameters/add-a-search-interface-to-results-sets-page/

 

You can deploy both your search and report on one web page

[Farnsbarnes]

Sorry but I wasn't clear.  What I meant to ask was whether a report page (NOT a submission form) and its results page can somehow be coded to appear on the same web page at the same time.  At present the search fields disappear when the results page is displayed. 

[MayMusic]

I am not sure how your page setup is. If you have the search page you can pass and receive parameters so when it refreshes to get the result you can again see what you searched for.

 

If you do not have submission (search) page, you can pass values form search and just received them in the header of results in this format: [@parameter name]

[Farnsbarnes]

Hi MayMusic.  I really appreciate your efforts in trying to answer this for me, but I'm still not sure we're quite understanding each other. No doubt it's my fault.  Please let me try once again.   Taking into account all that's been said in this post, as well as the clarifications made earlier by Matilda, the question concerns the following:

 

1) I need to use a report datapage (tabular in this case) using its search fields functionality and the results page.  (easy)!

2) I want to deploy this on a single webpage, but I need to have the search fields and the results page visible, AND BOTH TO REMAIN VISIBLE at all times.

 

At present with a tabular report, either the search fields are displayed, OR the results are displayed, but never both visible at the same time.   So my question is whether there is any code that can give me control over this.

 

(I know I can achieve all this with submission forms and passing parameters, but for reasons stated earlier in this thread I don't want to take that route)

 

Many thanks for your patience with me!   

[JEllington]

Maybe this could help, although it can only be used in fields that send and receive parameters. In this thread..
http://forums.caspio.com/index.php/topic/5438-how-do-you-make-a-dropdown-from-a-search-page-filter-a-results-page-without-pressing-search-button/

Jgorny suggests that you can set the fields to send AND receive its parameter, so it will reload the parameter upon submit. MayMusic also suggests this solution in a previous post above.

I was able to utilize this solution on my search page dropdowns with the expected results. 

[Farnsbarnes]

Thanks JEllington... this is a good suggestion for keeping selections in the fields.

 

I still have this nagging feeling however that there must be a way to somehow have a report datapage and its results page (not submission form) both permanently visible on a single web page.  I really don't understand why Caspio GUI's don't offer such a feature.  It would immediately solve the mountain of problems regarding multi select listboxes updating multi-select cascade listboxes in real time - a problem no one on the forum seems to be able to solve with submission forms.

[MayMusic]

As far as I know the only way to have search and report visible at the same time is to have a submission page to work as search. And I understand your concern about multi-select and cascade multi-select

 

But I have a trick !!

 

Create a search and details and setup the search as desired.

Create a pre-defined report to receive parameters.

Deploy both on the same page.

On details page add Header/Footer and add the code below to the Header:

<script>
window.location="URL OF THE PAGE";
</script>

Let me know if that helped.

[Farnsbarnes]

Your trick is a cunning one MayMusic!    This easily allows me to present multi-select listboxes and cascades, and get results on the same web page, while both search and results remain visible.  Brilliant!   Just a couple of issues:

 

First, because the pages are separate, I need to force the results page to receive the parameters from the multi-select parent listboxes in the search report.  Should I use the code we'd normally use for a submission form with multi-select listboxes, except that now of course we don't use virtual fields?

 

And how do I pass parameters from the multi-select cascade listboxes?   Should the coding, in principle, be the same as for the parent multi-select listboxes, simply with the field names changed?

[MayMusic]

The reason is that when you send parameters over to report values are separated in this format:

 

param1 ||cb|| param2 ||cb|| param3 .....

 

and if we want to use contains in pre-defined report to filter data we need to have parameters separated by comma ","

 

I have been looking for a way to convert it before sending it out to report by could not find a way yet ... sorry ...