Highlight: “Data out of date”-indicator

AppGini / Highlights of the day

The "out-of-date" issue of calculated fields

"Calculated fields" is one of many awesome features of AppGini. By using calculated fields you can calculate or concat values based on other (editable) fields.

For example in the following screenshot of a "Business Partner" detail view there are three columns Name (1), Name (2) and Abbreviation.

The 4th field label (Bezeichnung) is a calculated field which concats values of the other three fields like this:

name1 name2 [ abbreviation ]

Now, when editing one of the three input fields the calculated field label still shows the same data - which might be out of date now:

The label field itself will be updated on save, that's fine. But right now it does not match.

Preferred behavior

I would like to indicate that the change could have an influence on the calculated field. So I have written a change-handler which highlights the calculated field on change.

// file: hooks/partners-dv.js
AppGiniDetailView.getInstance().getField("label").highlightOnChange();

Result

As you can see there is a wavy underline in orange (similar to spelling-mistake indicators). Well, still the value does not match. But my customer can see that there may be a change on save.

Showcase

Alternative: fade out / hide

As an alternative to highlighting, I can also fade out the calculated field...

AppGiniDetailView.getInstance().getField("label").fadeOutOnChange();

...or hide it

AppGiniDetailView.getInstance().getField("label").hideOnChange();

AppGini Helper Features

  • highlightOnchange feature
    should be available by the end of 2020
  • hideOnChange feature
    should be available by the end of 2020
  • fadeOutOnChange feature
    should be available by the end of 2020

For single fields

  • new AppGiniField("field").highlightOnChange();
    should be available by the end of 2020

Those features will work on multiple fields, too:

  • new AppGiniFields("field1", "field2", "...").highlightOnChange();
    should be available by the end of 2020

PS: SQL of calculated field

SELECT trim(
concat_ws(" ", name, name2, CASE WHEN abbreviation IS NOT NULL THEN concat_ws(' ', '[', abbreviation , ']') ELSE null END )
)  FROM partners
WHERE id = '%ID%'