Scaffolding: Difference between create/edit views

[ThomasBecker]

Hi all,

I found it quite odd that associations are handled differently in create and edit views. Reason is the following line from create.gsp scaffolding template:

if (!Collection.class.isAssignableFrom(p.type)) {

I found other ppl wondering about this when searching the web a bit. And I can imagine a good reason for this difference. When you've a bidirectional relationship and use the "add" button it'll take you away from your form and you'll loose the data you probably already entered.

But if that's the only reason, then a simple check like this would take care of bidirectional hasMany relations:

if (!p.isBidirectional()) {

I tried it and it works fine. But I guess there's another reason for this difference in the standard grails scaffolding templates?! Am I missing something important or will my version be just fine? If there's not, I suggest to adapt this change to the standard scaffolding templates as this difference on add/edit seems to confuse users.

Cheers,
Thomas

[ThomasBecker]

Another similar issue I had is that you can't remove all associated objects with the default scaffolding. Root cause is that if you deselect everything in a select box, nothing from that select box is transferred to the server.

I fixed it by adding a hidden field with empty value for all Collection types. Need to do more testing to see if it has sideeffects.

Here's the changes I did for both the topic I described in the first post and the one described herd:

diff --git a/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/create.gsp b/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/create.gsp
index f638064..2e6dcac 100644
--- a/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/create.gsp
+++ b/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/create.gsp
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
                             display = true
                             boolean hasHibernate = PluginManagerHolder.pluginManager.hasGrailsPlugin('hibernate')
                             props.each { p ->
-                                if (!Collection.class.isAssignableFrom(p.type)) {
+                                if (!p.isBiDirectional()) {
                                     if (hasHibernate) {
                                         cp = domainClass.constrainedProperties[p.name]
                                         display = (cp ? cp.display : true)
diff --git a/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/edit.gsp b/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/edit.gsp
index 41ee197..2c20866 100644
--- a/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/edit.gsp
+++ b/content-server-grails/src/templates/scaffolding/edit.gsp
@@ -41,7 +41,11 @@
                                     cp = domainClass.constrainedProperties[p.name]
                                     display = (cp?.display ?: true)
                                 }
-                                if (display) { %>
+                                                               
+                                if (display) { 
+                                                                       if (Collection.class.isAssignableFrom(p.type)) {
+                                                                               %> <g:hiddenField name="${p.name}" value=""/> <%
+                                                                       }       %>
                             <tr class="prop">
                                 <td valign="top" class="name">

If you think it makes sense to get one or both of these changes into the grails scaffolding templates, let me know. I will create the JIRA issues then.

[pledbrook]

Hi Thomas,

Rob Fletcher is currently working on the scaffolding, so if you raise a JIRA issue and post the URL here, I will assign it to him so he can take a look.

Thanks,

Peter

[ThomasBecker]

Done:

http://jira.grails.org/browse/GRAILS-7446
http://jira.grails.org/browse/GRAILS-7447

[ThomasBecker]

Comment to my first post. I had to enhance the if clause above to:

if (!p.isBidirectional() || p.isManyToOne()) {

To get ManyToOne select boxes being displayed.

[abbyjhon]

thanks for info.............



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