php – Cloudy DATA Blog

PHPRunner – Pass Value to CSS Reference using Javascript in a pop up

Javascript is very powerful and will easily calculate all sorts of interesting things for you dynamically. In PHPRunner I use the popup windows for nearly every table or view form so I wanted it to work with these.

But with PHPRunner we want to store these in the database. I had a devilish time finding a way of referencing the field with which to copy any Javascript value into. After some lengthy discussion with ChatGPT 4 (via Bing) it suggested that I might try and use the CSS Selector.

I then discovered that I couldn’t seem to identify the name of the CSS Selector.

What I discovered is that I could not see a static CSS Selector reference for any of the fields except those that I had altered the formatting on for example changing the font to Roboto Mono.

So first step choose your target field and then alter it using the PHP page designer and then publish.

What I discovered was after that I could use the inspect item to identify the CSS Selector

On the published application navigate to the form and the field you wish to target for entry right click and select inspect.

Look to the DevTools window (in chrome and you should see in bold the css names of your field

You can then ask ChatGPT the following

Can you parse the input css selector I need from the following string that can be used by javascipt to be passed a value

[data-page="t0017_add"][data-itemid="integrated_edit_field4"][data-page="t0017_add"][data-itemid="integrated_edit_field4"][data-page="t0017_add"][data-itemid="integrated_edit_field4"][data-page="t0017_add"][data-itemid="integrated_edit_field4"] > * > * > input

An element is a part of a webpage. In XML and HTML, an element may contain a data item or a chunk of text or an image, or perhaps nothing. A typical element includes an opening tag with some attributes, enclosed text content, and a closing tag. Elements and tags are not the same things.

PHPRunner – Using Sweet Alerts to give Users confirmation of Save

In PHPRunner as of version 10.51 the sweet alert javascript library is included in PHPRunner generated web applications.

How can we add code to a project to make bespoke adjustments?

Firstly navigate to the form you wish to add a special sweet alert to and insert a Custom Button.

Next navigate to the Events tab in PHPRunner and expand the table or view to which you added the additional button.

Behind the Javascipt OnLoad event add the following code

$('a[id^="saveButton"]').hide(); // Hide button "Save"

And on the Client Before Event of the new button add the following code

Swal.fire({
icon: "success",
title: "Saved",
showConfirmButton: false,
timer: 1000
});
$('a[id^="saveButton"]').click();
return false;

So what does the code do
Javascript OnLoad Event – Hides the real save button
On Click – Triggers the sweet alert success routine and once that is complete triggers the hidden savebutton code.

And more examples and inspiration

Sweet alert 2

And also if you find the Sweet Alert modal size too small add this to your page css:

.swal2-popup { font-size: 1.6rem !important; }

Most of this was from the following Xlinesoft User forum Thread
Thread

PHP Runner : Tips and Tricks – Reload a page from event that belongs to a button

For example on a page we have a button that parses text coming in.

1. Add the following code to Javascript OnLoad event of the table in question

window.tablePage = pageObj

2. Add the following code to any Javascript event where you want to reload the table. Can be ClientAfterevent of any button

if( window.tablePage ) {
window.tablePage.reload({a:'reload'});
}

As far as I can tell what you name the pageObj in this case tablePage is up to you – at the point of naming you are creating this variable.
My hunch is that you would want to name this something relating to the page and something not overly complicated but unique.

The ClientAfterevent references the same pageObj for page refresh.

My understanding of the way the code works is.
On loading the page create a pageObj variable named window.tablePage

After pressing the button if there is a pageObj variable named window.tablePage refresh it!

PHP-Runner linked to SQL Azure – Passing parameters from a row to a stored procedure which is then Executed

This is useful where you have values in a table row that you wish to pass to a stored procedure.

As per the previous post I was wanting to use this in the context of needing to create a particular view from the data in a particular row.
Its probably possible to do this with some kind of DB::Query or DB::Lookup but in this instance I chose to use dynamic SQL. I will be working on other methods as well.

From my previous post I already had my SQL Azure Stored procedure defined as.

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

ALTER   PROCEDURE [dbo].[auditselection]
(@firstname nvarchar(15),
@Dcreate datetime)
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON
 
EXEC ('CREATE or ALTER VIEW v01 AS 
SELECT dbo.T0001Persons.PKID, 
dbo.T0001Persons.Firstname, 
dbo.T0001Persons.DateCreated
FROM
dbo.T0001Persons 
WHERE 
dbo.T0001Persons.Firstname=' + '''' + 
@firstname + '''' + ' 
AND dbo.T0001Persons.DateCreated <= ' + '''' 
+ @Dcreate + '''' +
'')
END

Firstly I went to the list view in PHP Runner and within the designer I inserted a button into the row.
(I will be working on something a bit cleaner later but for now I’m just trying to get it to work)

In the CLIENT BEFORE part of the tri part event I put

params["Firstname"] = row.getFieldValue("Firstname");
params["Dcreate"] = row.getFieldValue("DateCreated");

Where Firstname and DateCreated are field values in my table T0001Persons

So in Javascript I am passing the field values to parameters called Firstname and Dcreate and then in PHP I pass those variables to the stored procedure and the database procedure does the rest.

Next I put the following code in the Server event

$sql = DB::PrepareSQL( "EXEC dbo.auditselection 
@firstname=':1',
@Dcreate=':2'", 
$params["Firstname"], $params["Dcreate"]);
DB::Exec( $sql );

Looking at the stored procedure syntax in SQL Azure.. you can see that the variables in the stored procedure that I happen to have been called @firstname and @Dcreate although they could have been named anything because PHP is passing the values and not the memory location(variable name) which makes sense because you are passing from a web server to a separate database server and the same memory spaces don’t exist in both.

Which lead me onto investigating how programs and operating systems manage memory space. link

And here are some screenshots of the code in PHPRunner

Javascript Client Before Part

PHP Server Part ( note this was my first effort which although worked did not qualify the database schema or name state the procedure variables being passed parameters)

and just for completeness the Javascript Client After Part

and how it looks in the list once deployed

and what happens once I have hit the button.

Of course this is all documented but when there is so much to learn it can take sometime to just look at the documentation and understand it. Most of what I have discovered here is written up
Link

Couple of points

Qualify the stored procedure with the database schema (although it does seem to work without this I am told this results in better performance)

You can qualify the variables that items are being passed to. Again will work without this.

Setting up CRON job using cPanel

Automation is so important these days and the following details how to create a simple cron job using CPANEL to send out a regular email. You can automate anything but I was wanting to use an example that would send me something to show that it was working. So I set up the following as an example to send out an email to myself every 5 minutes.

I am going to focus on a single method. The above link details how to do it using the command line on a linux server which may be helpful. I am concentrating on using the cpanel interface here.

Step 1 : Sign into your cpanel administrative panel.

Step 2 : Look to the Advanced Tab and identify the Cron Jobs Icon

Entering the Cron Jobs panel you will be presented with the following screen.

Leave the Update email button…

Step 3 : Identify the PHP script you wish to run and load it into a directory taking note of where you have noted.
(You will need to point CRON to run your specific script)

If you don’t have a script try this one. It uses the php mail function to send out a simple email to whatever target email you want which allows you to

<?php     
$to_email = 'targetemail@targetcompany.com';
$subject = 'Mail sent using a Cron Job Script';
$message = 'Hello and best wishes';
$headers = 'From: noreply@yourcompany.com';
mail($to_email,$subject,$message,$headers);
?>

Step 4 : Save the above PHP script somewhere and load it to your server so that taking a note of where you put it.

Now I would start and set this to run up every 5 minutes just to test that it is working –

In the common settings there is s drop down which has a range of settings everything from once a minute to once a year select once every 5 minutes.

Step 6 : Set the command to be run.
Now this is the only really tricky part to the whole thing. I haven’t found a great deal of documentation on the syntax of the command that you should enter. I found two different syntaxes that seemed to work.

/usr/local/bin/php /home/youruserid/public_html/cronscripts/testrun.php

php -q /home/youruserid/public_html/cronscripts/testrun.php

Then simply hit the Add New Cron Job button and then wait for five minutes – if everything has completed successfully there will an additional line in the cron jobs listing and you will get an email every 5 minutes.

Happy Cron Jobbing.

One interesting point in my cpanel host was that you could limit the cron job to the domain which may be necessary as you become more proficient with the kind of jobs that you are wanting to run in your cron job.