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 You can add a grid to a screen to display table data. The examples on this page refer to data for employees from various companies.

Creating a Simple Grid

Once you have On a screen created it is simple canvas, to add any data to it. To add a grid to display data:

1. Click In the screen toolbar, click 

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    .
2. Drag a table from the list and drop the desired table it onto the screen . In this instance, the Employees table is dragged onto a screencanvas.
3. PhixFlow then asks prompts you to choose how to display the data using:Image Removed
4. Click Grid 
5. The attribute picker should then appear. Drag and drop the attributes to display directly onto the grid.

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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 from the primary table Employees, is added to the grid, PhixFlow does the following automatically:

• adds the display name attribute (CompanyName) from the related table (Companies).
  This attribute is marked with Image Removed in the grid header,
• hides the foreign key.

Adding relational attributes from a many:1 relationship Image Removed

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 Removed  on the grid header.

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Adding relational attributes from a 1:many relationship Image Removed

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 Removed on the grid header. 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 in the Grid Settings section on the attribute editor.

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. If more than one attribute is added the aggregation is combined. The default aggregate function can be changed by

1. Open the attribute editor by clicking on the attribute column header
2. Add an Aggregate function using the drop down under Basic Settings.

For more information on aggregation, see Aggregating Data.

PhixFlow sets the following defaults: 

Count

Making Grids Editable

Marking Columns as Editable

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

Untick Read Only

Saving data

To save changes to editable attributes

1. Right click on a grid and Show the view configuration
2. Open the Advanced section
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. 

More Information

1. 
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2. Click 

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   . PhixFlow adds an empty grid.
3. The Available Attributes window appears, as shown in the animation below.
4. Select attributes and drag them onto the empty grid. 
   PhixFlow adds the attributes as columns and populates the grid with the records in the table. Click on the GIF below to see a larger version:

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The appearance of the grid is set in the application properties →

Marking Columns as Editable 

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Editable Editable

PhixFlow assumes that the data in a grid should not be editable by the application user, so sets the grid attributes to be read-only. If you want the application user to be able to edit the data in one of the grid columns:

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties; see View Attribute.

2. In the 

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    → Grid Settings, untick Read Only.
   1. In PhixFlow version 11.1+, click the

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       → Grid Settings, untick Read Only.

The way an application user changes a cell value in a grid depends on the data type; see Understanding Data Types. The application user can:

• overtype a value for data that is a string, bigstring, integer, float or decimal
• select from a date-picker for dates and date/times
• select from a drop-down for an attribute that is set as the display name.
  PhixFlow automatically updates the data record's unique identifier attribute to match the selected display name.

Autosaving Changes

When the application user makes a change to a cell in a grid, PhixFlow needs to save the change to the table. One option is to have a save button that the application user must click to save any changes; see Understanding Actionflows and Save Node.

Alternatively, allow PhixFlow to automatically save any changes that the application user makes. This change applies to the whole grid.

1. In the grid, right-click to open the popup menu and select

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    to open the grid view properties.
2. On the 

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   , in the Action Settings section, toggle on Auto Save.

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    the properties.

Configuring Drop-Down Options

If you want the application user to select from a set of values for a cell, add a drop-down using the view attribute properties 

Reordering Columns

PhixFlow lists attributes from left to right in the header using the values in Basic Settings → Order. There are two ways to change the order in which the attributes are listed.

On the Grid

1. In the screen canvas, drag a header and drop it in a different position in the header. 
2. PhixFlow changes Order value for all affected properties.
   
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In the Properties

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties; see View Attribute.

2. In 

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    → Basic Settings → Order, change the number.

3. PhixFlow changes the Order value for all affected attributes.

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Labelling Columns 

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By default, PhixFlow displays the attribute name as the column header. However, some attributes have technical names that make no sense to application users. In this case, you can add a different label to use in the header. You can also group columns under a shared header.

Adding Labels

To add a label that PhixFlow uses instead of the attribute name:

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties.
2. In 

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    → Label, add the text you want to appear in the column header.

Grouping Columns

If the data has related attributes, you can display the columns under a shared heading.

1. In Basic Settings → Order, put the attributes next to each other in the grid.
2. For each attribute, in Basic Settings → Label, specify a group heading using the form 
   Group, Specific 

For example, in the Employees grid we have two name-related attributes next to each other:

To change this to appear as:

1. For the view attribute First name, set Label: Name, First
2. For the view attribute Last name, set Label: Name, Last

The animation below shows how PhixFlow groups the adjacent columns using the group label.

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Hiding Columns

Often your table requires attributes but the user does not need to see them. These attributes can contain

• codes or identifiers, such as the primary key
• data auditing information, such as the latest change to the attribute.

To hide attributes that do not need to appear in the grid:

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties.

2. In 

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    → Grid Settings, tick Always Hidden.
   1. In PhixFlow version 11.1+, click the

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       → Grid Settings, tick Always Hidden.

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You can also configure a column so that PhixFlow can show or hide it depending on a condition.

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties.

2. In 

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    → Grid Settings → Hide if evaluates to True
   1. In PhixFlow version 11.1+, click the

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       → Grid Settings → Hide if evaluates to True.

3. Add an expression. When the expression evaluates to:

   • false, PhixFlow displays the column 

   • true, PhixFlow hides the column.

For example, you want to show a simplified grid for application users working on a mobile device, hide optional columns with a Hide if evaluates to True expression of:
   _client.mobile

Changing Column Widths

Depending on the defaults used for your grid, the columns may be set to resize automatically to take up a percentage of the available space.

On the Grid

1. On the unlocked screen canvas, drag a column divider to the position you require.
2. Lock the screen.
3. PhixFlow saves the column widths to the attribute's 

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    → Grid Settings → Grid Default Width (pixels).
   1. In PhixFlow version 11.1+, click the

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       → Grid Settings → Grid Default Width (pixels).
      
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In the Properties

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties.

2. In 

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    → Grid Settings
   1. In PhixFlow version 11.1+, click the

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       → Grid Settings 

3. Specify:

   • a minimum width, whilst allowing the column to stretch to fill the available space on larger screens, in Minimum Width specify a number.
     For example, to prevent the column from shrinking below 100 pixels, specify 100. 

   • fixed column width, in Grid Default Width (pixels), specify a number.
     For example, to fix a column width to 100 pixels, specify 100 (shown below).

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Setting Grid Colours 

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Where your application uses the Serene Grey package template, grids are configured so that rows are automatically highlighted when the application user:

• hovers their mouse pointer over a row (highlight on-hover)
• clicks a row to select it.

There are different places where you can set styles; see Screen Styling.

Highlighting the Selected Row

The application user can click on a row to select it and it will be highlighted. To set or change the highlight settings for a selected row: 

1. Click the home button from the top menu and click

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   .
2. In 

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    → Style Settings section → Row Selection Style, click

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    to open the style properties.
   
   
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3. If no style is set, click 

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    to add one.
4. Set the styling properties you wish to apply to selected rows in your grids. See Screen Styling.
   1. Common styles include:
      1. Font
      2. Background-color

Highlighting a Changed Row

To highlight a row when the application user changes a value:

1. Click on the column header
2. In the View Attribute properties → Grid Settings → tick Changes Row Colour. 
   1. In PhixFlow version 11.1+, click the

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       → Grid Settings → tick Changes Row Colour.
3. When the application user changes a value, PhixFlow automatically selects the row. The highlight persists until the application user clears the selection box at the start of the row.

Adding a Background Colour of a Row

The following allows us to set a row colour base on a value held within the row. This is recommended to be applied to specific rows.

1. Right-click on a grid and select

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   .
2. Click on the 

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   .
3. Add a new style to Grid Row Style.
4. Provide a name and click 

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   . This is necessary before we can add a CSS Property.
5. In the CSS Properties section, click 

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   1. CSS Tag, background
   2. Expression, 

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   3. Value, set a condition for applying the style. For example, using the Employees data we will colour rows grey where the person's first name is Ewan.
      1. if(_current.first_name == "Ewan", "grey")
         1. _current allows each row to check its value, and the value returned from our expression must be a string so we use quotes around the colour.

Adding a Background Colour to a Column

To specify the background colour of a column, specify a Formatting Rule; see below.

Using Formatting Rules in Grids

PhixFlow formatting rules use an expression to determine the style or format to use depending on conditions; see Applying Formatting Rules. For example, the Companies table has a Status attribute. In a grid, you might want to display Approved companies in rows with a green background, but if the company is not approved it is displayed in a row with a red background. For further information on this topic see Adding Grid Icons and Interactive Icons

To apply a formatting rule to a grid:

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties.

2. In 

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    → Formatting Rules, click 

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    to open the properties for a new formatting rule.

3. In Rule Expression, specify the condition; see Expression Basics and Expressions and PhixScripts. When this condition is true, PhixFlow applies the format. For example, to apply the style when the status is Approved, specify:

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   _current.Status == "Approved"

   
   

4. In Style, select or add the style you want to use.
5. Click 

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   . The animation below shows the Status column with a green background after the rule has been applied.

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Changing Number and Date Formats

Your application has default formats for numbers and dates. If you want a different format for this grid, for example, to show a date of 01 Jan 2000 instead of 01/01/2000:

1. In the grid, click on the attribute column header to open its properties.

2. In 

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    → Basic Settings, select an alternative format for:

   • Number Format

   • Date/Time Format.

For how to create new formats, see Date Time Format and Number Format.

Learn More

• Filtering and Sorting Grids and Charts
• Formatting and Styling Grids and Charts
• Using Relational Views
• Actions on Grids and Charts
• Properties
  • View
  • View Attribute
  • Attribute