A list of inputs using netui tags

Question

Hi all,
we have a family of netui problems which occur quite frequently.
The main problem is: what to do when we have a list of items (we don't
now how many), and we want to display them, and get some input from the
user.
1. The simplest form, when the user only has to select one, is ok: we
create a list of netui:anchor -s, with parameters, or we use a
netui:select (but even in this case we don't know what to do if the name
and the key of the items are different).
2. The user should choose more then one item.
a) We tried to use netui:select multiple=true. It renders fine, but we
can't get the results properly. If the user selects only one item,
it's ok, we can get it with a String field in the actionform. But if the
user selects more items, then we can't catch them.
We tried with String and List fields, but none of them worked (they
contained null).
b)It is more complicated, if we also want to display some attributes of
the items, like:
<checkBox> name1 description1 other attribute1
<checkBox> name2 description2 other attribute1
<checkBox> name3 description3 other attribute1
3. The user should enter some text or number for each item
e.g. (quite similar to 2.b)
name1 description1 <input type='text'/>
name2 description2 <input type='text'/>
name3 description3 <input type='text'/>
For 2.b) and 3) we have a workaround: we don't use netui:checbox or
netui:textfield, but manually construct input boxes. The names of the
boxes are the same that would be created by netui tags (e.g.
{actionForm.input[1]}), so when the user submits the form the framework
thinks that they were normal netui stuff and fills the actionForm with
their data.
4. The user can create a list on the fly, so he/she can even add more
elements to the list. We can do it with a submit per new item method,
but it would be better if could do it on the client side, and the user
would click on submit only when he finished editing. e.g.:
we want discounts in a tiered fashion: when the user buys at least 10
pieces of a product, he gets 10%, more then 100 means 15%, and more then
1000 means 20%. But it shouldn't be a fixed list, the administrator
should be able to create as many ranges as he wants. It looks like this:
Limit Discount
<input1_L> <input1_D>
<input2_L> <input2_D>
<add more button>
On the client side we can create the input boxes dynamically, with
proper names, so the system will know which field(s) of the actionform
we try to set. The problem is that when he submits the form, we get
IndexOutOfBoundsException, since the field of the actionForm doesn't
contain enough space for the items. Of course, we can initialize the
field in the reset() method of the actionform, but at this time we don't
know how many elements will it store.
We checked the docs, samples, and the bea newsgroups, but couldn't find
solutions to these questions (We have seen some similar questions in the
newsgroups, so it seems other people also have some of these problems).
I hope I described them clearly and you will be able to find ways to
solve (at least some of ) them.
Thanks in advance,
don

Answer 1

Hi all,
we have a family of netui problems which occur quite frequently.
The main problem is: what to do when we have a list of items (we don't
now how many), and we want to display them, and get some input from the
user.
1. The simplest form, when the user only has to select one, is ok: we
create a list of netui:anchor -s, with parameters, or we use a
netui:select (but even in this case we don't know what to do if the name
and the key of the items are different).
2. The user should choose more then one item.
a) We tried to use netui:select multiple=true. It renders fine, but we
can't get the results properly. If the user selects only one item,
it's ok, we can get it with a String field in the actionform. But if the
user selects more items, then we can't catch them.
We tried with String and List fields, but none of them worked (they
contained null).
b)It is more complicated, if we also want to display some attributes of
the items, like:
<checkBox> name1 description1 other attribute1
<checkBox> name2 description2 other attribute1
<checkBox> name3 description3 other attribute1
3. The user should enter some text or number for each item
e.g. (quite similar to 2.b)
name1 description1 <input type='text'/>
name2 description2 <input type='text'/>
name3 description3 <input type='text'/>
For 2.b) and 3) we have a workaround: we don't use netui:checbox or
netui:textfield, but manually construct input boxes. The names of the
boxes are the same that would be created by netui tags (e.g.
{actionForm.input[1]}), so when the user submits the form the framework
thinks that they were normal netui stuff and fills the actionForm with
their data.
4. The user can create a list on the fly, so he/she can even add more
elements to the list. We can do it with a submit per new item method,
but it would be better if could do it on the client side, and the user
would click on submit only when he finished editing. e.g.:
we want discounts in a tiered fashion: when the user buys at least 10
pieces of a product, he gets 10%, more then 100 means 15%, and more then
1000 means 20%. But it shouldn't be a fixed list, the administrator
should be able to create as many ranges as he wants. It looks like this:
Limit Discount
<input1_L> <input1_D>
<input2_L> <input2_D>
<add more button>
On the client side we can create the input boxes dynamically, with
proper names, so the system will know which field(s) of the actionform
we try to set. The problem is that when he submits the form, we get
IndexOutOfBoundsException, since the field of the actionForm doesn't
contain enough space for the items. Of course, we can initialize the
field in the reset() method of the actionform, but at this time we don't
know how many elements will it store.
We checked the docs, samples, and the bea newsgroups, but couldn't find
solutions to these questions (We have seen some similar questions in the
newsgroups, so it seems other people also have some of these problems).
I hope I described them clearly and you will be able to find ways to
solve (at least some of ) them.
Thanks in advance,
don