I'm working on a simple CRUD proof of concept with Rails/Backbone/JST templating. I've been able to find a lot of examples up to this point. But after much searching and reading, I've yet to find a good example of how to handle these scenarios:
info message: new item successfully added to list (shown on list screen)
info message: item successfully deleted from list
error message: problem with field(s) entry
field level error message: problem with entry
The Backbone objects are:
Collection (of "post" Models) -> Model ("post" object) -> List/Edit/New Views (and a JST template for each of these views)
So, I'm looking for a high level description of how I should organize my code and templates to achieve the level of messaging desired. I already have a handle on how to perform my validation routine on the form inputs whenever they change. But not sure what do with the error messages now that I have them.
Here is the approach I'm considering. Not sure if it's a good one:
Create a "Message" Model, which maps to a "View", which is a sub-view (if that's possible) on my existing views. This view/model can display page level messages and errors in the first three scenarios I mention above. Not sure if it's feasible to have a "sub-view" and how to handle the templating for that. But if it's possible, the parent templates could include the "message" sub-template. The message view could show/hide the sub-template based on the state of the message model. Feasible? Stupid?
For the fourth scenario, the model validation will return an error object with specific messages per each erroneous field each time a "model.set" is called by form field changes. I don't want to interrupt the "model.set" but I do want to display the error message(s) next to each field. I want to know how to factor my edit/new template and Post model/view in such a way that I don't violate the MVC pattern. I.e. I don't want to put references to DOM elements in the wrong plage.
Sorry if this is vague. If you're inclined to help, let me know what code snippets could be helpful (or other details) and I'll provide them.
You create a global eventbus. When ever an error appears trigger an event. Your view that should show the message listen to the events on this eventbus. Doing so, your error message view dont needs to know all of your collection and vice versa. The eventbus is simple:
var eventBus = _.extend({}, Backbone.Events);
Add it to your collection and trigger it when ever add was called:
var myCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
initialize: function([],eventbus){
this.bind('add', function(obj){eventbus.trigger('added', obj)}
}
})
Take also a look at the article: http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/07/19/references-routing-and-the-event-aggregator-coordinating-views-in-backbone-js/
Related
I’m trying to create a new dataset type Powerapps Component (PCF). For the moment I am using it to display a view of the records that are available in an entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
I wish to make the view sort itself when I click on the grid column headers (in a similar way that the default CRM grid view does). I'm trying to figure out how to apply a sort to the dataset so that I can refresh it as indicated by the documentation for the dataset.refresh() function:
Refreshes the dataset based on filters, sorting, linking, new column.
New data will be pushed to control in another 'updateView' cycle.
The dataset object does have a “sorting” property, but changing its value and then refreshing the dataset doesn’t seem to have any effect. After the refresh, the sorting property reverts to the value it had before I changed it.
In short, the click handler for the grid header does something like the following bit of code. The refresh gets done and my updateView() function gets called as expected but the sorting was not applied.
dataset.sorting = [{name: 'createdon', sortDirection: 1}];
dataset.refresh();
Any help on getting the dataset sorting to work would be appreciated.
I've been experimenting with PowerApps Component Framework a little bit recently and I can confirm that the following code won't be working:
dataSet.sorting = [ { name: "columnName", sortDirection: 0 } ];
However, I managed to get this one working for me:
dataSet.sorting.pop(); // you may want to clean up the whole collection
dataSet.sorting.push({ name: "columnName", sortDirection: 0 });
I haven't really figured out the reason of this behavior. The sorting array may be implemented as some form of observable collection in the background.
I hope this will guide you to a functioning solution.
The documentation is pretty abysmal here, but here is my best guess from putting a few different pieces of information together.
TLDR: I think there is some kind of extra method that needs to be called on the .sorting property, but I can't find out what it is called. Maybe something like:
dataset.sorting.setSorting({name: 'createdon', sortDirection: 1});
I think you're going to have to try a bunch of likely method names and see what works.
Background and links:
The only reference I could find to dataset.sorting was from here:
In this preview for canvas apps, only a limited set of filtering and sortStatus methods are supported. Filter and sort can be applied to dataset on primary type columns except for the GUID. Filter and sorting can be applied in the same way as in model-driven apps.To retrieve the dataset with filtering and sorting information, call
the methods in context.parameters.[dataset_property_name].filtering
and context.parameters.[dataset_property_name].sorting, then invoke
the context.parameters.[dataset_property_name].refresh().
So it seems that the .filtering and .sorting properties are handled similarly, and that there are some methods attached to them, and only some are supported. That is about as vague as they could make it...
I did find an example of how .filtering is used:
_context.parameters.sampleDataset.filtering.setFilter({
conditions: conditionArray,
filterOperator: 1, // Or
});
There is a brief reference to .setFilter() in the docs, as well as FilterExpression
There is a SortStatus reference, but it doesn't have any corresponding methods explicitly called out. It is possible that this is not yet a supported feature in the public preview, or the documentation is lacking and the name and syntax of the method you need to call on .sorting is not yet documented.
I'm currently utilizing Laravels notification package a bit more, but the following bothers me for weeks now: What should I really store in notifications?
Sometimes notifications are related to specific models, but not always.
Examples: Your blog post was published. or An error occurred while doing something. The entry was deleted.
Sometimes these models have relationships like Post → Category and the message should look like: Your blog post in the category "A Category" was published.
Now the questions:
Should I save a related model completely (eg. Category)? This would make accessing it later easier, but it's also a source for inconsistency. Or should I simply save the category ID? Only saving the ID means that I can reference the current data, but what happens if the category gets deleted? Then the notification cannot be rendered. Also I would need to also query the related models for this notification everytime.
Should I save the full message or only the data and compose the message on the client? (App, SPA Web-Frontend...). What about localization then?
What is a best practice for future scaling and also for extending existing notifications in the future?
So you propose to either go for:
1. Save notifications including all data required to display it
OR
2. Save notifications with just references so it can render message later on
So let's consider the advantages and drawbacks of both options.
Option 1: saving including all data
If a related model is deleted, the notification message can still be rendered as before (as you mentioned)
If a related model is changed (e.g. category title is changed), the notification message does not change
If you want to change a notification later on to include additional fields from related models, you won't have those fields available
Option 2: saving including just references
If a related model is deleted, the notification can not be rendered (as you mentioned). I would however argue that the notification wouldn't make much sense in this case.
If a related model is changed (e.g. category title is changed), the notifciation message changes with it
If you want to change a notification later on to include additional fields from related models, you will have those fields available
Additionaly if you were to serialize the notifications in the database you won't be able to deserialize them if you changed the model for it later on (e.g. a field is deleted).
Implementation of option 2
In order to go for option 2 additional database load can't really be avoided.
Easy way
The easiest way would be to resolve the relationships in the notification would be to query the relationships during the rendering of the notifications array, this however will cause the system to an additional query for each relationship.
NotificationController.php
$user = App\User::find(1);
foreach ($user->notifications as $notification) {
echo $notification->type;
}
MyNotification.php
public function toArray($notifiable)
{
$someRelatedModel = Model::find($this->someRelatedModel_id);
return [
'invoice_id' => $this->invoice->id,
'amount' => $this->invoice->amount,
'relatedModelData' => $someRelatedModel->data,
];
}
Nicer way
The better solution would be to adjust the query currently used for retrieving the notifications so it will include the relationships on the initial load.
NotificationController.php
$notification = App\Notification::byUserId(1)->with('someRelatedModel);
See eager loading for more on this.
Tl;dr Considering the points above I'd go with option 2; only keep references to models you'll need when rendering the notification.
I have simple cocoa app with 2 entities. They have one to one relationship between them.
In my only window, I have 2 NSTableViews, one display the customer and in another his address. If I change the relationship between the 2 entities in one to many, then everything in my app works (add, edit, delete).
However, if I change the relationship between the 2 entities in one to one, I can insert the customer, but when I attempt to insert record in the second NSTableView (address) app crashes with following error:
2015-10-09 03:50:28.357 TwoEntitiesRecord[1793:56879] -[__NSSetM managedObjectContext]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x608000040f90
2015-10-09 03:50:28.357 TwoEntitiesRecord[1793:56879] -[__NSSetM managedObjectContext]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x608000040f90
2015-10-09 03:50:28.361 TwoEntitiesRecord[1793:56879] (
I am not posting any code for the app, since I didn't write one. It is all done trough binding.
Any help will be deeply appreciated.
You have an incorrect binding. As you can tell from the error message, you are asking an NSSet for its managedObjectContext. An NSSet does not have a managed object context.
So, look at your bindings. One of them is probably bound to the property that represents a relationship, as that would be an instance of NSSet. Your binding is probably asking it for the MOC.
Just in case that someone has same issue: In one of my array controllers, the one for the address, in array controller attribute inspector I had unchecked auto rearrange content checkbox.
Honestly I have no idea why after I checked this checkbox app suddenly stop crashing on insert, but that was the solution for my problem.
I am a newbie to knockoutjs. I have searched examples and so far no luck. I have a page that is a data collection form with the values bound using knockout. What I am trying to do is provide the user with a flag letting him know data is modified and that it needs to be saved. In the app a user may pull down the form and display the data from the server and use it only as information. In other cases he may modify that data. I want to display a label that says something like "data has been modified" to the user once any binding has changed plus if he tries to navigate away from the page I want to warn him the changes will be lost. Is there some event I can subscribe to that tells me when any value has been changed in the model?
Thanks,
Terry
Take a look at Ryan Niemeyer's Dirty Flag. It might be what you are looking for. An example of his method can be seen in this jsFiddle.
this.dirtyItems = ko.computed(function() {
return ko.utils.arrayFilter(this.items(), function(item) {
return item.dirtyFlag.isDirty();
});
}, this);
More info can be found in this SO thread: Knockout isDirty example, using dynamic viewmodule from mapping plugin
Suppose you have a subsystem that does some kind of work. It could be anything. Obviously, at the entry point(s) to this subsystem there will be certain restrictions on the input. Suppose this subsystem is primarily called by a GUI. The subsystem needs to check all the input it recieves to make sure it's valid. We wouldn't want to FireTheMissles() if there was invalid input. The UI is also interested in the validation though, because it needs to report what went wrong. Maybe the user forgot to specify a target or targetted the missles at the launchpad itself. Of course, you can just return a null value or throw an exception, but that doesn't tell the user SPECIFICALLY what went wrong (unless, of course, you write a separate exception class for each error, which I'm fine with if that's the best practice).
Of course, even with exceptions, you have a problem. The user might want to know if input is valid BEFORE clicking the "Fire Missles!" button. You could write a separate validation function (of course IsValid() doesn't really help much because it doesn't tell you what went wrong), but then you'll be calling it from the button click handler and again from the FireTheMissles() function (I really don't know how this changed from a vague subsystem to a missle-firing program). Certainly, this isn't the end of the world, but it seems silly to call the same validation function twice in a row without anything having changed, especially if this validation function requires, say, computing the hash of a 1gb file.
If the preconditions of the function are clear, the GUI can do its own input validation, but then we're just duplicating the input validation logic, and a change in one might not be reflected in the other. Sure, we may add a check to the GUI to make sure the missle target is not within an allied nation, but then if we forget to copy it to the FireTheMissles() routine, we'll accidentally blow up our allies when we switch to a console interface.
So, in short, how do you achieve the following:
Input validation that tells you not just that something went wrong, but what specifically went wrong.
The ability to run this input validation without calling the function which relies on it.
No double validation.
No duplicate code.
Also, and I just thought of this, but error messages should not be written in the FireTheMissles() method. The GUI is responsible for picking appropriate error messages, not the code the GUI is calling.
"The subsystem needs to check all the input it receives to make sure it's valid"
Think of the inputs not so much as a list of arguments, but as a message, it gets easier after that.
The message class has an IsValid member function, it remembers if IsValid was called and what the result was. It also remembers its state, if the state changes then it needs to be re validated. This message class also keeps a list of validation errors.
Now, the UI builds a TargetMissiles message, and the UI can validate it, or pass it directly to the MissileFiring subsystem, it checks to see if the message was validated, if not it validates it, and proceeds / fails depending.
The UI gets the message back, with the list of validations already populated.
The messages with their validation sit in a separate library. No code is duplicated.
This sound OK?
This is what Model-View-Controller is all about.
You build up a model (a launch which is composed of coordinates, missile types and number of missiles) and the model has a validate method which returns a list of errors/warnings. When you update the model (on key-up, <ENTER>, button-press) you call the validate method and show the user any warnings, errors, etc. (Eclipse has a little area just under the tools bar in a dialog that does this, you might want to look at that.)
When the model is valid, you activate the launch missiles button so that the user knows that they can launch the missiles. If you have an update event that is called particularly frequently or a part of the validation that is particularly costly, you can have a validate_light method on the model that you use for validating only the parts that are easy to do.
When you switch to a console based UI you build up the model from the command line arguments, call the same validate method (and report errors to stderr) and then launch the missiles.
Double the validation. In many case the validation is trebled (FKs and not null fields in the DB for example). Depending on your platform it may be possible to code the validation rules once. For example your front end and backend code could share C# business classes. Alternatively you could store the validation rule as metadata that both the backend and front end can access an apply.
In reality the fact that you need different responses to a validation problem (for example the Fire Missile button shouldn't even be enabled until the other inputs are valid) there will be different code associated with the same rule.
I'd suggest an input validation class, which takes the input type (an enumeration) in its' constructor, and provides a public IsValid method.
The IsValid method should return a boolean TRUE for valid and FALSE for invalid. It should also have an OUT parameter that takes a string and assigns a status message to that string. The caller will be free to ignore that message if it wants to, or report it up to the GUI if that's appropriate for the context.
So, in pseudocode (forgive the Delphi-like syntax, but it should be readable to anybody):
//different types of data we might want to validate
TValidationType = (vtMissileLaunchCodes, vtFirstName,
vtLastName, vtSSN);
TInputValidator = class
public
//call the constructor with the validation type
constructor Create(ValidationType: TValidationType);
//this should probably be ABSTRACT, implemented by descendants
//if you took that approach, then you'd have 1 descendant class
//for each validation type, instead of an enumeration
function IsValid(InputData: string; var msg: string): boolean;
And then to use it, you'd do something like this:
procedure ValidateForm;
var
validator: TInputValidator;
begin
validator := TInputValidator.Create(vtSSN);
if validator.IsValid(edtSSN.Text,labelErrorMsg.Text) then
SaveData; //it's valid, so save it!
//if it wasn't valid, then the error msg is in the GUI in "labelErrorMsg".
end;
Each piece of data has its own meta data (type, format, unit, mask, range etc.). Unfortunately this is not always specified.
The GUI controlls need to check the input with the metadata and give warnings/errors if the data is invalid.
Example: a number has a range. The range is provided by the metadata, but the range check is provided by the control.