Joomla: editable list screen

Question

Hi,

I have a joomla site where users can log in. Once logged in, a user can display a list screen -- say, a contact list with a name column and a phone number column. I call it a list screen, but I guess it could be called a list view, grid view, etc.

I'd like to make one of the columns (say, the phone number column) editable in place; meaning, I don't want to force the user to open a contact editing form. Thus, in the phone number column, a text box should be displayed on each line. The textbox contains the existing data for that row. The user can change the phone number in the text box directly in the list screen, and then press some 'save' icon on that row to save only that row (and only if it has changed). It'd be nice if the saving was done with an AJAX request, but it'd be ok to submit a form for now.

Based on the 'list screen' in the book "Learning Joomla Extension Development", I can currently display the correct list of items for the user. Does any one have example/tutorial of how to do the saving of each row individually? It seems like all list screens that I see have a link which must be clicked to open an edit form, as opposed to allowing editing in place.

Thanks

Answer 1

You have to write a component first. Which will basically do the saving part of the individual row. So basically your component URL takes parameter as row_id phone number etc and have a update query updating the database.

Second is you need to write a javascript function which is called on click of every save button. The javascript function reads row details by reading from the DOM. and then fire an ajax request to the above mentioned component. the URL to the above mentioned component should have format=raw.

The result from the component update queries can be returned as true or false. And accordingly read by javascript ajax response. based on which A flag could be shown saying row updated. I can help you with code further if you describe it in more details