Soup viewer/editor

Design Issues

• use with a single soup -- though if several soups shared the same entry structure, it would be possible to add a SELECT field to choose among several homogeneous soups
• use with a single FORM -- or test ACTION in FORM_INIT, and submitobj.ACTION in soupEdit. The FORM_INIT method is called initially, and whenever a Submit button script returns true (in this example, all except Save). All Submit buttons use the soupEdit action, which checks which button was pressed via the Command field.
• The form ideally fits on one page to simplify navigation; you may want to replace this this section with directions (at beginning?); H1:Above:Top). Modify the current layout according to structure of your soup entries, user interface preferences, and intended screen size/orientation.

• an entry value is a string or array of strings (checkbox, multiple SELECT); it converts existing soup values to string but if your soup has integer or symbol indexes, you would have to be careful about value conversion before saving or adding an entry. In particular, it views but does not allow editing or storing of the _uniqueID and _modTime slots. The _uniqueID and _modTime (modification date/time) of the soup entry are displayed as static labels (see nformobj.htm for discussion of alternate form objects via VALUE_TYPE.
• navigation. soupedit starts with first entry in soup; when you try to go Prev before beginning, Next after end, or encounter a deleted entry, it displays a "New" entry (and an "entry#" which is out of range: 0 or > entries#). The current location (entry and soup/cursor state) is maintained while the book is open; when it's closed, it's automatically removed. Alternatively, you could store the object references somewhere else -- though be sure to include a bookHideScript to handle cursor deallocation.
• 2.x only -- though this could work on 1.x with a few changes (:RegisterCardSoup instead of RegUnionSoup, and non-"Xmit" functions)

This document (in all its formats) is © 1997-2007. Steve Weyer. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. You are free to incorporate this into your own documents, but I would appreciate an acknowledgement of Newt's Cape and the example.

Last updated: Dec 2000