Path forward to add a nested child table

skidude

Hi All:

I'm new to DataTables and Editor, and I'm probably in over my head. So this is a request for guidance.

At present, I have a single table (grid) working beautifully. I can edit and delete records. I can add new records. The server side processing is working beautifully.

Each record represents a person or business. I call them entities. So each record describes someone that I call on regularly. (It's a contact database).

Now I wish to move forward toward a child/nested table. This would hold the (0-many) "touch" records. Each "touch" describes an interaction with an entity. You can imagine the use cases: For a given person or organization, I wish to see dates and notes from all the prior interactions. Each time I contact a person, I would add another "touch" record.

I have both tables built and populated with sample data (PostgreSQL). But at this point I do not know how to proceed forward, thus the request for general guidance.

I'm not sure of my next steps. How should I think about the path forward?
Is there any particular example which illustrates the newest and best approach for this requirement?

Thanks much. I am INSPIRED by this tool set, and eager to move forward.

Alan

allan

Hi Alan,

What you are looking for is basically a combination of this blog post about parent / child tables and this example for child rows.

Reading through both of them in details and understanding how each works would be the starting point I would suggest.

Allan

skidude

Hi Allan:

I am tempted to pay $109 for a wee bit of assistance.

Would you ever consider doing some form of screen sharing such as Skype?

I'm convinced that my application is 99% done and that your eyes could quickly spot what I am missing.

My application exposes a table CONTACTS which holds contact information.... This is the parent table. I also have a child table TOUCHES which contains the details of what happened on each occasion when <salesrep> had a discussion with <contact>.

Both of the tables are created and populated in PostgreSQL.
My parent table has > 3000 rows which I inserted programmatically in order to prove that server side processing is working. (it IS)

Within the visual part of the site I can see all fields from within the parent table plus a count of child rows. This I show as a field way off to the right: "numtouches".
This is showing up and it gives a correct value

But the child table never gets populated or visible in the DATATABLES sense.

I'm sure you can get to my site, but it's secured with HTTPS and a self signed cert, so you might have to set up a security exception. There is a menu but none of the menu picks are linked to anything. The whole site is a training exercise for something I will do for someone this Spring.

I could provide the link in a post like this or in a private followup.

Thanks for any ideas,
Skidude / Alan

PS: I'm in the US / Eastern time zone.

If you would consider screen sharing, what time would work? If I were to get on at 06:30 AM for instance, would that be about midday for you? Or by chance are you a late night guy? My day ends at 5:30 PM Eastern, so I could jump on for some dialog at that time.
There is no real urgency nor any real rush. This could happen sometime during the next 1-10 days if that helps.

PPS: NO is a valid answer. I would still consider a paid support case. I just didn't think it would be necessary for you to reimplement my app when it is available already for both of us to see.

allan

Hi,

Yes please, if you could PM me the link I'll take a look and see if I can spot what is going wrong. In the PM could you also include the PHP code for the child table?

I'll let you know if it looks complicated and would need a Skype session. Hopefully, as you say, you are already 99% done and its just a small change needed!

Allan

skidude

email sent. Thanks as always.