CFWindow Naming Gotcha
Published By: Scott Stroz on Feb 22, 2008 at 11:36 AM
Times Viewed: 2533
Categories: ColdFusion
I am working on a small application that can be used to demonstrate some of the AJAX capabilities of ColdFusion 8. It is a simple master/detail application for managing information about users. The main page uses <cfgrid> to display the list of users. When you want to edit a user, or create a new one, I use the ColdFusion.navigate() JavaScript method to load a URL into a <cfwindow>. This page contains the user form.
Whenever I created or edited a user, it would work as expected...the first time. The next time I would try to edit or create a user and submit the form, I would get an error from ColdFusion stating that one of the form fields was missing. Huh? How is that possible sine the form just worked? Using FireBug I was able to look at the POST of the form submission. On the instances where I would receive the error, sure enough, the form fields were not getting posted, but, the <cfgrid> was. Now, how did that happen? Well, the answer to that question is quite simple.
Here is what the code looked like for the <cfgrid>.
<cfform name="userGridForm" method="post">
<cfgrid name="userGrid" ......... >
<cfgridcolumn name="USERID" header="ID" display="false" />
<cfgridcolumn name="FIRSTNAME" header="First Name" width="200" />
<cfgridcolumn name="LASTNAME" header="Last Name" width="300" />
<cfgridcolumn name="EMAILADDRESS" header="Email" width="220" />
<cfgridcolumn name="PHONE" header="Phone" />
</cfgrid>
</cfform>
Here is what the code looked like in the user form, which was a seperate file:
<cfform name="userForm">
<cfinput type="hidden" name="userId"....../>
... {more form fields} ...
</cfform>
Can you see it? Do you see the problem? As soon s I saw that the <cfgrid> was posting instead of the user form, it tipped me off. When the <cfwindow> is open, there are 2 forms named "userForm" on the page, causing the <cfgrid> to be submitted sometimes, and the user form others. Why it did not error out everytime I tried to save a user is beyond me. Changing the <cfform> name to "userGridForm" on the mian page cleared up the issue.
Remember, even though you are in a different physical file, naming can cause issues, especially when using them as I did in this litle demo.
when I saw the title I thought you were talking about the name attribute of the cfwindow tag. I was trying to use a cfwindow but didn't know how to test if a cfwindow with that name already existed so I ended up using ColdFusion.Window.create instead
Posted By: Michael White on Feb 26, 2008
I need to do something similar to what you are doing here. I am using a flash form, and need to popup a window to enter or update detail information that will update back to the master table.
When I use <cfwindow> it tells me I need to use the cfajaximport tag for cfwindow....which I have done at the top of the calling page...and again at the top of the called page (where the detail information entered/updated).
I'm new to flash/ajax...I have used cf5 for many years. The new techniques are overwhelming me.
Thanks for your help.
Leon
Posted By: Leontyne Williams on Feb 27, 2008