few newbie questions after a good deal of reading + playing.......

O

odeno

Hi,
I'm new to groove and have read a good deal about it plus played around with
a trial. I'm particular interested in writing scripts for enhanced behaviour
within the forms tool. Here are thes questions I hope someone can help me
with:-

1. When to use lookups and when to use GetRecordFieldValue or
GetParentRecordFieldValue? It would appear you use the lookups when you want
to access a range of fields in the form and the latter 2 when you only need
to access a single record? Not sure if my assumption is correct......

2. Can't see when it would be appropriate to access a Parent record?
Or is a parent record one that has a number of other records grouped
underneath it? For example within the design sandbox, I can click on Field
groups and group them together - is the group name the parent field?

3. Can't figure out how to use ApplicationPreferences and the associated
methods. All I want to do is setup a confirmation letter template for end
users will invoke by clicking a script button. I need certain fields to
change within the letter template (e.g. name + address as with a mail merge)
according to the current record.

Thanks for any help....
 
M

Mark Smith

Hi Odeno -

Use Lookups to get values from other records that are not the parent record
or children of the current record. Its painful using Lookups to get multiple
field values from other recors, but doable. GetREcordFieldValue is useful
when you want to compare the current records original state with its state as
represented in the UI. For example to work out which fields a user has
changed, or to see if the underlying record has been modified by someone else.

Parent records are useful! If you think about the discussion tool, it would
not be able to build the "Re: Blah Blah Blah" title if it could not read the
parent title field. Groups are not related to parent records at all -they
just organise fields on the form.

Application preferences. You may never use these - but imagine a form with a
load of tabs on it - you might want to automatically select one tab when the
user opens a record for editing, and store that preferred as name for next
time. Preferences won't help you with your mail merge requirement.

Hope this helps.
 
O

odeno

Hi Mark,

Thanks, that's useful.

It seems that applicationpreferences isn't what I need to use. All I'm
simply trying to achieve is grab a certain block of text in a field within a
form when a script button is clicked in another form in the same workspace.

The same block of text is required. I can probably achieve the mail merge
bit by creating separate salutation fields on the form and then performing a
lookup for the field for the particular record the button is being clicked
for.

Here it is summarised....

1. user navigates to record of interest (RecordOfInterest)and clicks script
button
2. script copies standard text into new window (will need to be printed)
3. script adds salutation for RecordOfInterest using a lookup (and any other
fields)
4. user saves and/or prints new record

Think I've got the general idea...just need to know the best class
interfaces/methods to use...

thanks if you have any other suggestions...

template text --
 
M

Mark Smith

Hi Odeno -

I've never seen a succesful mailnerge done from *inside* Groove, though that
does not mean it is impossible.

Disclosure: My company created a reporting tool for Groove Forms that
includes mail-merge abilities.
 

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