concept problem ask at runtime and dates

rocketman

This is a concept problem that I just can't figure out. I was wondering whether the Ask at runtime variable was held in a way that could be re-used.

I want my members to be able to select a date and from that one selection, view a number of different lists in my main panel.

1) a list of fellow members who are coming to fly on the selected date
2) A list of people who are booked in for a trial lesson
3) a list of comments left by members in a kind of whiteboard area

The selected date needs to persist because when a member sees the flying list for the selected date he will click on an "add me" button which triggers a process to add an attendance record for the LoggedInMember.

In asp it was easy - I just set a session variable to hold the selected date until the user changed it by clicking on a different date on the calendar.

For a number of reasons I don't want modal windows popping up so the scenario would read

Select a date,
perform three "finds" (attendees, trial lessons, whiteboard entries
display these lists in three separate panels in my main frame
have the ability to add the logged in member to the list for the selected date (that bit is easy once I can get at the selected date)

Select a different date and start over

H..e...l....p

aware_support

You can simulate "session" variables by having standard Aware IM objects that you will just delete after the end of the session. Such an object would have a reference to the LoggedIn user that created it. You would add a rule to the Logout notification that would find all such objects whose user is equal to the user who had just logged out and delete them.

The rest is easy - you can have a form of such an object on the screen at all times and then start a process from the form whenever the selection of date changes.

That is, if you don't want pop-up windows. With pop-up windows everything would be an order of magnitude simpler - just create non-persistable object on the fly and use the selection in this object.

rocketman

Thanks support.

One supplementary question I've been meaning to ask. If a lazy user doesn't log out but simply closes the brower window, does the logout notification still fire when the session times out?

aware_support

Yes.

tford

Rocketman,

I use LoggedInRegularUser attributes a lot to do tasks like you describe. I often do NOT clear them our from session to session so that there is always a default value.

So, if a user logged in & went to the screen you described with the 3 types of info, they would be presented with the date they selected on their last login. That enables the user to always see some data & possibly not have to make a date selection. Of course, they can easily click on the "Change Date" option & select a date.

rocketman

Hi Tom,

Yes I did it that way in the end, although I've been playing with the new calendar last couple of days.

It's a great shame we can't get access to the calendar's selected date. It must be there - how else would the system know which appointments to populate in the various views etc.

It's one of those frustrating things that's dead easy in asp.net calendar control. On balance - AwareIm is still the best dev tool around. I just want to have my cake and eat it