Forum OpenACS Q&A: setting __refreshing_p to 1?

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1: setting __refreshing_p to 1?
Posted by James Thornton on 09/12/03 05:07 AM
I can't seem to set __refreshing_p to true -- what's the proper way to do this with ad_form?

Also, if it's set to true, and I use {html {onchange submit()}} for the widget, the form will refresh, execute the code in -on_refresh, and set any values in the refreshed form that I have specified in -on_refresh -- right? Is that the proper way to use -on_refresh?

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2: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 1)
Posted by Jerry Asher on 09/12/03 05:42 AM
I am working on a page who's author uses __refreshing_p.

What they have is a li'l piece of javascript attached to the form element 

{html {on change "document.info_form.__refreshing_p.value='1'; document.info_form.refresh_p.value='1';document.info_form.submit()"}}
They also have a hidden form element refresh_p 
{refresh_p:text(hidden) {label "Refresh"} {value 0}}
They check refresh_p in validate blocks. If it's set they "excuse" blocks that don't validate.

In the -on_refresh block, they set the values of those calculated widgets values that uh, make sense to refresh. At the end of the form, they call 

template::element set_value info_form refresh_p 0
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3: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 1)
Posted by Deds Castillo on 09/12/03 06:07 AM
I think I can remember that code.  During that time, I experimented with different combinations to make it work and that's the only answer I came up with.  Would be nice if someone could come up with a more "elegant" solution that can be used as future reference.
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4: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 1)
Posted by Jerry Asher on 09/12/03 06:53 AM
Hey Deds, I was really pleased to see how you got that to work!

Bye the way, to gain insight into how ad_form and the form template engine works, place something like this at the top of your .tcl page. 

ns_log notice it's my page!
set mypage [ns_getform]
if {[string equal "" $mypage]} {
    ns_log notice no form was submitted on my page
} else {
    ns_log notice the following form was submitted on my page
    ns_set print $mypage
}
This print will all the crazy things POSTed to your page into your server log.
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5: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 4)
Posted by Jade Rubick on 09/12/03 07:03 PM
Great Great Great idea Jerry. I'm putting that on my ad_form page.
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6: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 2)
Posted by James Thornton on 09/13/03 10:32 AM
Rather than using refresh_p, why not simply make use of __refreshing_p...

} -validate {

{sku {$__refreshing_p || 0 < [string length [string trim $sku]]} "\"SKU\" must contain a value"}

}

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7: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 1)
Posted by Randy O'Meara on 09/13/03 11:16 PM
Jerry,

Could you post a more complete code fragment so I can understand what you all are talking about. It's sounds very interesting, I just do not comprehend... yet.

Randy

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8: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 7)
Posted by Jerry Asher on 09/14/03 05:27 AM
Hi Randy,

I don't know if I can or not....  In terms of copyright and confidentiality....  If James gets his page going, perhaps he can show a small demo of how that works.

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9: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 1)
Posted by James Thornton on 09/14/03 05:41 AM
Here is an abridged demo of vehicle.tcl..

set sql "select category, category_id from moto_category where parent_id IS NULL"
set category_options {"Select a Category" ""}
set category_options [linsert [db_list_of_lists get_vehicle_categories $sql] 0 $category_options]

if {[info exists __refreshing_p] && [string equal $__refreshing_p "1"]} {

    set sql "select category, category_id from moto_category where parent_id = :category_id"
    set subcategory_options {"Select a Subcategory" ""}
    set subcategory_options [linsert [db_list_of_lists get_vehicle_subcategories $sql] 0 $subcategory_options]

} else {
    set subcategory_options "-------------"
}

ad_form -name vehicle -form {

    vehicle_id:key(moto_vehicle_id_seq)

    {sku:text(text),optional {label "SKU"} {html {size 30}}}
    {category_id:integer(select),optional {label "Category"} {options {$category_options}}
      {html {onchange "document.vehicle.__refreshing_p.value='1';document.vehicle.submit()"}}}
    {subcategory_id:integer(select),optional {label "Subcategory"} {options {$subcategory_options}}}

# bunch of vars snipped

} -on_refresh {
    # didn't use -on_refresh
    # set subcategory_options before ad_form
    # because I couldn't find a way to set them here

} -validate {

    {sku {$__refreshing_p || 0 < [string length [string trim $sku]]} "\"SKU\" must contain a value"}
    {category_id {$__refreshing_p || 0 <[string length $category_id]} "\"Category\" must contain a value"}
    {subcategory_id {$__refreshing_p || 0 < [string length $subcategory_id]} "\"Subcategory\" must contain a value"}

# all vars are validated in the same way...

}

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10: Re: setting __refreshing_p to 1? (response to 1)
Posted by Randy O'Meara on 09/14/03 05:30 PM
Thank you, James and Jerry. I can see clearly now.