This is may be an obvious question to a Django expert, but is there a way that I can save all user inputs (clicks through content without having to explicitly save every entry in a table). If this is possible, then how do I access it later?
If I have to create models, like this I can:
#(within a view function)
UserInputs.objects.get_or_create(user=request.user,
selection1=request.POST.get('selection1'),
id=request.POST.get('id')),
thumbs_up=request.POST.get('thumbs_up'),
thumbs_down=request.POST.get('thumbs_down'),
comments=request.POST.get('comments')
)
Is there an easier way to get it done? Because I have lots and lots of different user click inputs and specifying every one like this will really slow down my application.
Is this data by chance saved in one of the sessions tables? Or can we create a custom sessions table to do this?
Related
I have flow where users can create (model) forms. If form is valid, object gets saved and flow continues, but selection is in multiple pages. I need to keep current state of created object, which cannot be saved before it's completely valid.
One thing I can do is to always pass things around those views in the ModelForm to make sure, that user never loses data, but I also wanna make sure, that if he leaves the flow and comes back, he doesn't lose data, that he already entered previously.
That's why I decided I wanna save all the fields to session.
Is this correct approach?
How would you do this?
Where would you put this session logic?
What's best way of getting the fields from incomplete form to be saved?
Edit:
Please don't give me advice on how to use session, I am talking more about high level logic and architecture than specific implementation.
I should describe my flow a bit more. Model has 3 fields.
normal dropdown (foreign key referencing another model)
textfield
another foreign key, but this time not done by select, but it's own separate page with lots of filters to help user pick the right (foreign) model
Flow is not linear, because user can start in different parts of page.
Sometimes user can go to page, where he has first 2 fields + button "Browse", which takes you to selection page for 3rd field. Then after he selects field there, he comes back.
But sometimes he selects first this field and then comes to screen with 2 remaining fields, where he needs to fill those.
django-formtools offers a great way to do this using Form wizard.
The form wizard application splits forms across multiple Web pages. It
maintains state in one of the backends so that the full server-side
processing can be delayed until the submission of the final form.
More info here https://django-formtools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/wizard.html
to save in session:
request.session["variable_name"] = "value"
to get from session request.session["variable_name"]. sure you can use request.session.get("..") in both too
I'm building a database that needs to display tables as lists and allow the user to export such lists as Excel spreadsheets.
Creating the reports, showing them as lists and providing the button for exporting as Excel was not a problem, however I noticed that when I show those lists the user can still edit them, hence add/deleting records and modify the content of existing records.
I'd like to find a way to avoid such modifications when visualizing the list, in such a way to be sure the user does not accidentally change data.
Any idea as to how to do this? I'm using Filemaker pro 11
Thanks in advance.
There are a couple of different ways that might be appropriate, depending on your needs:
In layout mode, click on the field, go to the Data tab of the Inspector, and turn off field entry in 'Browse' mode. (You also have the option to turn off field entry in 'Find' mode. And you can select multiple fields at once to make the selection for all of them.) This is appropriate if your users can regularly enter data into these fields but you don't want them to enter data for this particular layout.
In Manage Database, under the field options, turn on Prohibit modification of value during data entry in the Auto-Enter tab. This is appropriate if you will only be changing the value of a field during an import or with a script.
In Manage Security, create a new Privilege Set that is View-Only for that table (or for those fields). This is appropriate when some users should be able to modify the data and other users should not be able to modify the data.
There are other methods, as well, but those are the three most common for limiting user access to data.
I have an app where user submitted data needs to go through a verification process before it shows up on the site. At the moment this means they cannot edit the item without removing it from the site (so our admins can check it's okay).
I'd like to write another model where I can store revisions. Basically three fields where I store the date submitted, a boolean saying if the user is ready for that revision to be considered and a third where I store all the changes (as a pickled/JSON dict).
The problem I have at the moment is I don't want to bombard the admins with a complete listing each time. I only want them to see the changed fields. This means I need a way of generating a list of which fields have changed when the user submits the edit ModelForm so I only save this data in the revision.
There are probably several ways of doing this but my post-pub-quiz brain is slightly numb and can't think of the best way. How would you do it?
In terms of where this would go, I'd probably write it as an abstract ModelForm-inheriting class that other forms use. I'd override save() to stop it writing the data directly back to database (I'd want to redirect it through this fancy new revisions model).
Come to think of it, is there an app that already does this generically?
I have the following situation: there is a table in the DB that is queried when the form loads and the retrieved data is filled into a DataGridView via the DataTable underneath. After the data is loaded the user is free to modify the data (add / delete rows, modify entries).
The form has 2 buttons: Apply and Refresh. The first one sends the changes to the database, the second one re-reads the data from the DB and erases any changes that have been made by the user.
My question is: is this the best way to keep a DataGridView synchronized with the DB (from a users point of view)?
For now these are the downsides:
the user must keep track of what he is doing and must press the button every while
the modifications are lost if the form is closed / app crash / ...
I tried sending the changes to the DB on CellEndEdit event but then the user also needs some Undo/Redo functionality and that is ... well ... a different story.
So, any suggestions?
I would say that the way you are currently doing it is fine. If you start attempting to update the database while the user is still making edits you can run in to issues updating or modfiying things that the user may ultimately decide they did not want to change. Additionally this has the chance to greatly increase the number of database calls.
Forcing the user to click apply helps ensure that only the changes the user actually wants are sent to the database.
As for losing the changes if the app crashes before applying them, I would be more concernced with why the app is crashing.
The only important thing to remember is that you should refetch the data before saving it and the refetched data should still match the data you originally displayed to the user. If it doesn't, someone else made a change your user will be unknowingly overwriting. Your users probably will not like that.
How you handle this is dependent on what your client needs in their database.
I am building a web app that allows our field staff to create appointments. This involves creating a record that contains many foreign keys, of which some come from very large tables. For example, the staff will need to select one of potentially thousands of customers.
What's the best way of doing this in Django?
A pop-up box that allows the users to search for customers, gives them the results, the user selects the results, then fills out the main appointment form and then
disappears?
Changing the appointments form to a customer selection page that
then reloads the appointments page with the data in a hidden form? Or
holding the data in some session variables?
Some from of Ajax approach.
A wizard where the flow is: a customer search page, a list of results and they select from results, then a search page for the next option (for example product selection), etc etc
(I'd like to keep it as simple as possible. This is my first Django
project and my first web project for more years than I care to
remember)
ALJ
Imho you should consider some kind of autocomplete fields. I think this results in the best usability for the user. Unfortunately, this always involves Ajax. But if you think that all users have JS turned on this is no problem.
E.g.
django-autocomplete
or what is probably more powerful:
django-ajax-selects
If you do the wizard approach, it will take longer for the user to accomplish the task and makes it harder to change selections.
Edit:
Well with django-ajax-selects you can define how the results should look like. So you can e.g. add the address behind the name.
Quote:
Custom search channels can be written when you need to do a more complex search, check the user's permissions, format the results differently or customize the sort order of the results.
I have done this before by integrating a jQuery autocomplete plugin. But, seeing as this is your first project and your desire to keep it simple, I suppose you could go with the session data option. For instance, you could show a search page where users could search for and select a customer. You could then store the, say, ID of the selected customer object as session data, and use it to pre-populate the corresponding field in the form when displaying the form. That's what I think offhand.