Category View Builder - Expand All (Portlet Factory)

Things have been so crazy the pass month. Been spending so much time picking up new skill but at the same time have to rush for the project. So I have been neglecting my post here. Almost coming to the completion of my project. Phase 1 anyway. Portlet Factory does give a good impression during these learning period.

I start to build a sample application using db2 as datastore. After playing around, I understand better the concept of separating data access & UI front end. This can be easily be done by creating separate model for service provider and consumer. For the first model, I prepare the SQL statements and the service provider & service operation builder. Then for the UI front end, service consumer builder is used. That way, the back end provider can be changed without changing the UI model. Of course the data schema have to be same.

I won't go into the detail of how that is done. The Portlet Factory samples covers a lot of those. I have gotten used to having categorized view from Lotus Domino/Notes. Thankfully, Portlet Factory provides category view builder. It is just a simple as selecting your table and specifying which column need to be categorized.



My only problem is getting it to expand all during load. Thanks to mtr on the forum, I have some idea on how to get it done. I use view & form builder to display the categorized view. So instead of setting the "View & Form" builder as main, create an "Action List" builder as the main. First I user the DataService to set the result for the table. Then I use the Category View function to expandAll. At last display the view page.



Hope the will help those looking for a expand all during load. The more I use Portlet Factory, the more I find it as a user friendly tool. Quite a lot of things can be done without going down into coding. That is a very good news for beginner.