This page is for data modellers who want to display data on a screen in a grid.

Overview

PhixFlow can display any Table data as a grid on GUI screens. This page will show you how to add data as a grid to any screen. It will go through a worked example of creating a grid of employees from various companies.

Creating

an Employees Grid

Once you have a screen created it is simple to add any data to it. To add data:

1. Click 

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   _table_list _table_list nopanel true

    
2. Drag and drop your the desired table onto the screen. In this instance, the Employees table is dragged onto a screen.
3. PhixFlow will then ask you asks how to display the data using:
4. Click Grid 
5. The attribute picker should then appear. Drag and drop the attributes to display directly onto the grid.

Relational Attributes

The Employees table has a relationship with a Company table. See the below ERD.

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Each employee has a company ID associated to it and is stored in a foreign key attribute, Company. This attribute is linked to the primary key (id_1) of the Companies table. The Companies table also has a display name attribute (CompanyName). This is the attribute that is displayed on the front end when adding a foreign key to any data bound component. For more information on ERD diagrams and relational views, see Entity Relationship Diagrams.

Adding foreign key attributes

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When a foreign key, e.g. Company, is added to the grid PhixFlow does the following automatically

• adds the foreign key (Company) from the primary table (Employees),
• adds the display name attribute (CompanyName) from the related table (Companies).
  This attribute is marked with Image Added,
• hides the foreign key.

Adding relational attributes from a many:1 relationship Image Added

On the above grid the user also wants to display the companies address on the same grid. This data is stored on the Company table and can be accessed using the relationship. To add the company address

1. Right click on the grid and click Show attributes for 'Employees'
2. Click the related table Companies(Company)
3. Drag and drop the attribute Address onto the grid. 
   This attribute is marked with Image Added

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Adding relational attributes from a 1:many relationship Image Added

The user creates another screen to display the company data and wants to display the number of employees for that company using their 1:many relationship. Using an attribute from a 1:many relationship causes aggregation of the data. The most simple case is to use the count() attribute. To add a relational attribute from a 1:many relationship

1. Right click on the grid and click Show attributes for 'Companies'
2. Click the related table Employees(Company)
3. Drag and drop the attribute Count() onto the grid. 
   This attribute is marked with Image Added. It is counting all the records on the Employees table which have that company as its foreign key value.
4. Rename the attribute using the label to Number of Employees

todo- redo GIF when Count() is available

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Adding any other attribute on the table will also cause aggregation. A default aggregate function is added to the attribute added. PhixFlow defaults this to the following:

Making grids editable

Marking columns as editable

By default all grid attributes are read only. Grids can be made editable by

1. Click on the attribute column header to open its property editor
2. Open Grid Settings

3. Untick Read Only

   Info
   Strings, Bigstrings, Integers, Floats and Decimals allow users to type to change its value Dates and Datetimes have a date picker to change its value Display name attributes will automatically appear as a drop down. Selecting a different value, e.g. Company, will automatically update the ID stored in the foreign key attribute

   
   

Saving data

Users can then click any value to edit it. To save changes to editable attributes

1. Right click on a grid and Show the view configuration
2. Open Advanced
3. Tick Auto Save
   This will automatically save any changes made to the grid. An action can be added as a save action below this field if required.

Drop downs

Any attribute can have a drop down added for a user to select a value. See View Attribute. 

Filtering and Sorting

• Grid filters
• Column filters
• Default filters
• Sort orders

The data in the grid can be automatically sorted by adding a default sort order on the backing view. For more information on sort orders see Sort Order.

The default sort order can be overwritten at any time by a user by right clicking on a column header and clicking Sort Ascending or Sort Descending. 

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The data in displayed on the grid can be filtered in the following ways

Filter	Location	Link	Reason to use
Default Filter	View Editor	Filter	Default filters can be cleared by the user on the front end. Use a default filter when users are allowed to remove the filter to view all the data. If a default filter has been applied grids are marked with Image Added. Clicking on this icon and selecting Clear Applied Filter will remove the default filter. E.g. A grid displaying a list of employees has an Active boolean attribute. The default filter only displays active employees, but a user can clear this filter at any time to view all employees.
Background Filter	View Editor	Filter	Background filters cannot be cleared by the user on the front end. Use a background filter to always filter any instance of the view by the parameters provided.  Warning Views can be reused by multiple data components. Using a background filter will filter all components which are backed by this view.
Background Filter Rules	Grid Component Editor	Filter Rule	Background filter rules cannot be cleared by the user on the front end. They appear on the data component instead of the backing view so only applies to that component. Rules can be added to each filter to only apply in certain contexts.  E.g. A button is clicked to show all employees for company X. This sets a hidden attribute to true. The background filter only applies when this hidden attribute is marked as true.
Column Filter Pickers	Grid Column Headers	Filters on Data Views	Controlled exclusively by the user on the front end. Users can select any attribute on a grid and filter using expressions and by selecting values. Image Added

Styles and Formatting

Grids and columns can be styled and formatted on the backing view.

Adding actions

Actions can be added to grids in three locations

• as a double-click action
• to a column against an attribute
• as a drop target

To add an action as a double-click action

1. Right click on a grid to Show the View Configuration
2. Open the Actions tab
3. On Double Click Action select either Table Action or Actionflow as an action type
4. Select or create the appropriate actionImage Added

To add an action to a grid column

1. Click on the grid column header to open the attribute property editor
2. On Double Click Action select either Table Action or Actionflow as an action type.
3. Select or create the appropriate action
4. Optionally set the following

Option	Description
Always Show Action Icon	Image Added Tick  to always display the action icon in read-only grid cells. The user can click anywhere in the cell to run the action. Image Added Untick to only display the action when the cell is in focus.
Hide the Input Field	Image Added Tick to hide the input field and to display the action icon in the column. Image Added Untick to display the input field in the column.
Hide the Action Icon	Image Added Tick to hide the action icon. The user can run the action by clicking anywhere in the cell. Do not tick this option for editable columns. Image Added Untick to display the action icon in the column.
Action Icon Style	The style applied to the action icon. If no style is set, PhixFlow uses a default cog icon Image Added.

To add an action as a drop target

Properties

For the view properties see View.