2. PHPRunner General questions
  3. Less confusing display of cascading details
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Less confusing display of cascading details

 		11/5/2023 4:11:18 AM
PHPRunner General questions
V
 valdaure author

Hi All,

I have four tables linked in a chain of cascading details: Main Dish, Components, Recipes, Ingredients. A Main Dish as served comprises usually three Components (meat, vegetable, starch). There is a Recipe to follow to produce each Component. Each Recipe uses a set of Ingredients. I like displaying the details records in-line, allowing the user to visually drill down from a Main Dish all the way to individual ingredients. However, even when viewing just one Main Dish record in the master list page, expanding the details of the other three cascading tables, each embedded in the one above, creates a very confusing screen, even with very distinct colors used for each table.

I can imagine two more visually appealing solutions :

TABS - For a Main Dish master record, is it possible to display all details, sub-details and sub-sub-details in dedicated tabs, from left to right, within just one expanded details section below the master record? It would be important for each tab to be updated dynamically to display only the details of the record selected in the tab to its left.

SECTIONS - This is a similar idea to the one above. Is it possible, when viewing a single Main Dish master record, to have three expanding and collapsing sections, one below the other (each NOT embedded in the one above) for displaying the details records? Again, the details in each section would need to be updated dynamically depending on the record selected in the section above.

Thanks in advance for any help, whether through using built-in functionality or customization.
admin 11/5/2023

I think it would greatly beneficial if you can post a screenshot of how it looks now and an example of the layout you are hoping to achieve. This is a highly visual question and the description alone doesn't cut.
V
 		valdaure author 11/5/2023

This is what my master record list page looks like currently, when all details are expanded. It's quite confusing for the user.

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V
 		valdaure author 11/5/2023

It will take me a while to produce the desire result in Photoshop. I'll post it as soon as I can.
P
 		pmuckleDevClub member 11/6/2023

A treeview option would be very nice to have. This is a screenshot from a Youtube video

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B
 		bkrulan 11/10/2023

I would recommend looking at Dashboards.

You can add multiple Detail List Pages that will automatically update depending on which Master Record you select.

So if you click "Hamburger de boeuf" on the Main Dish List, the Components will update to show you "Frites belges" and "Hamburger de boeuf", and click on one of those will update your Recipe List and so on.

It helps keep everything a lot cleaner without so many layers on layers, in my opinion.
admin 11/10/2023

This is exactly why visual questions should be accompanied with some screenshot or mockup. "Less confusing display of master-details" is a very vague description that didn't make much sense to me. Once person suggested using a tree control, another one suggested dashboards. No update from topic starter though.

fhumanes 11/14/2023

Hello,

I am trying to make an example using a secondary menu to reflect the tree of the hierarchy of dependent records.

This is the documentation link: https://xlinesoft.com/phprunner/docs/menu_modify.htm

I think that "the good solution" is to dynamically create the context menu of a record. The technical solution of version 10.91 is a bit basic, but this type of representation is very common on expedient, contracts, etc. And it would be very interesting for PHPRunner to evolve this solution.

I will share my advances in this forum thread.

Greetings,
fernando
fhumanes 11/18/2023

As I had commented, I have worked on an example where to show the structure in a hierarchical tree.

I have not been very satisfied, but decorating it a bit, it could be an alternative.

At least, the article I have published: https://asprunner.com/forums/topic/30219-Guide-74--Create-menus-dynamically
It will serve for those who wish/need to create a menu dynamically.

img alt

Greetings,
fernando