cfgrid

Description

Used in the cfform tag. Puts a grid control (a table of data) in a ColdFusion form. To specify grid columns and row data, use the cfgridcolumn and cfgridrow tags, or use the query attribute, with or without cfgridcolumn tags.

Category

Forms tags

Syntax

<cfgrid  
    name="name" 
    align="value" 
    appendKey="yes|no" 
    autoWidth="yes|no" 
    bgColor="web color" 
    bind="bind expression" 
    bindOnLoad="yes|no" 
    bold="yes|no" 
    colHeaderAlign="left|right|center" 
    colHeaderBold="yes|no" 
    colHeaderFont="font_name" 
    colHeaderFontSize="size" 
    colHeaderItalic="yes|no" 
    colHeaders="yes|no" 
    colHeaderTextColor="web color" 
    collapsible="false|true" 
    delete="yes|no" 
    deleteButton="text" 
    enabled="yes|no" 
    font="column_font" 
    fontSize="size" 
    format="applet|Flash|html|xml" 
    gridDataAlign="left|right|center" 
    gridLines="yes|no" 
    groupfield="column name" 
    height="integer" 
    highlightHref="yes|no" 
    href="URL" 
    hrefKey="column_name" 
    hSpace="integer" 
    insert="yes|no" 
    insertButton="text" 
    italic="yes|no" 
    maxRows="number" 
    notSupported="text" 
    onBlur="ActionScript" 
    onChange="ActionScript or bind expression" 
    onError="JavaScript function name" 
    onFocus="ActionScript function" 
    onLoad="JavaScript function name" 
    onValidate="JavaScript function name" 
    pageSize="number of rows" 
    pictureBar="yes|no" 
    preservePageOnSort="yes|no" 
    query="query name" 
    rowHeaderAlign="left|right|center" 
    rowHeaderBold="yes|no" 
    rowHeaderFont="font name" 
    rowHeaderFontSize="size" 
    rowHeaderItalic="yes|no" 
    rowHeaders="yes|no" 
    rowHeaderTextColor="web color" 
    rowHeight="pixels" 
    selectColor="web color" 
    selectMode="mode" 
    selectOnLoad="yes|no" 
    sort="yes|no" 
    sortAscendingButton="text" 
    sortDescendingButton="text" 
    stripeRowColor="web color" 
    stripeRows="yes|no" 
    style= "style specification" 
    target="URL_target" 
    textColor="web color" 
    title="text" 
    tooltip="text" 
    visible="yes|no" 
    vSpace="integer" 
    width="integer"> 
 
        zero or more cfgridcolumn and cfgridrow tags 
 
</cfgrid>
Note: You can specify this tag’s attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag’s attribute names as structure keys.

History

ColdFusion 9:

  • Added collapsible, groupfield, and title attributes, supported in HTML grids only.

  • Added ability to use the insert attribute in HTML grids.

ColdFusion 8: Added support for HTML format grids, including the html value of the format attribute and the following attributes: bind, bindOnLoad, pageSize, preservePageOnSort, stripeRows, stripeRowColor.

ColdFusion MX 7.01: Added support for the onBlur and onFocus events.

ColdFusion MX 7:

  • Added the format attribute and support for Flash and XML output.

  • Added enabled, onChange, style, tooltip, and visible attributes (Flash format only).

ColdFusion MX: Changed the rowHeaderWidth attribute: ColdFusion does not use the rowHeaderWidth attribute. You can omit it.

Attributes

Note: In XML format, ColdFusion passes all attributes to the XML. The supplied XSLT skins do not handle or display XML format grids, but do display applet and Flash format grids.

Attribute

Req/Opt; formats

Default

Description

name

Required; all

Name of the grid control.

align

Optional;

applet

Alignment of the grid cell contents:

  • Top

  • Left

  • Bottom

  • Baseline

  • Texttop

  • Absbottom

  • Middle

  • Absmiddle

  • Right

appendKey

Optional;

HTML, applet

yes

  • yes: when used with href, appends "CFGRIDKEY=" and information about the selected items. For details, see the section Using the href attribute.

  • no

autoWidth

Optional;

HTML, applet

no

  • yes: sets column widths so that all columns display within the grid width. Widths are equal or the proportions are determined by the relative cfgridcolumnwidth attribute values. Horizontal scroll bars are not available.

  • no: sets columns to equal widths or the values specified in the cfgridcolumnwidth attributes.

bgColor

Optional; all

Background color of the control.

For most formats, can be a hexa-decimal format or a named color. For a hexadecimal value, use the form "##xxxxxx", where x = 0-9 or A-F; use two number signs or none. For a list of the supported named colors, see cfchart.

  • Limitations: for HTML format, must be a valid web color; for Flash format, must be a hexadecimal value.

  • Flash format only: to specify background colors for alternating rows, separate the two colors with a comma.

bind

Optional; HTML

A bind expression used to fill the contents of the grid. Cannot be used with the query attribute.

For more information, see Binding data to form fields in Using Ajax Data and Development Features in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.

bindOnLoad

Optional; HTML

yes

  • yes: executes the bind attribute expression when first loading the form.

  • no: does not execute the bind attribute expression until the first bound event.

Ignored if there is no bind attribute.

For more information, see Using the bindOnLoad attribute in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.

bold

Optional; all

no

  • yes: displays text in bold.

  • no

colHeaderAlign

Optional;

applet

left

  • left: left-aligns the column header text.

  • right: right-aligns the column header text.

  • center: centers the column header text.

colHeaderBold

Optional; all

no

  • yes: displays column headers in bold.

  • no

colHeaderFont

Optional; all

Font of column header.

colHeaderFontSize

Optional; all

Size of column header text, in points.

colHeaderItalic

Optional; all

no

  • yes: displays column headers in italic.

  • no

colHeaders

Optional; Applet, Flash

yes

  • yes: displays column headers.

  • no

colHeaderTextColor

Optional; all

Color of column headers.

  • Options: same as for textColor attribute.

collapsible

Optional; HTML

False

A Boolean value specifying whether the user can collapse the entire grid by clicking an arrow on the title bar. Specifying this attribute adds a title bar to the grid.

delete

Optional;

HTML,

applet

no

  • yes: users can delete row data from the grid; takes effect only if selectmode="edit".

  • no

deleteButton

Optional;

HTML, applet

Delete

Text for the Delete button; takes effect only if selectmode="edit".

enabled

Optional;

Flash

yes

Flash format only: Boolean value that specifies whether the control is enabled. A disabled control appears in light gray.

font

Optional; all

Font of text.

fontSize

Optional; all

Size of text, in points.

format

Optional; all

applet

  • applet: generates a Java applet.

  • Flash: generates a Flash grid control.

  • html: generates an AJAX-based HTML grid control that supports data binding.

  • xml: generates an XML representation of the grid.

In XML format forms, includes the generated XML in the form.

In HTML format forms, puts the XML in a string variable with the name specified by the name attribute.

gridDataAlign

Optional;

applet

left

  • left: left-aligns data within the column.

  • right: right-aligns data within the column.

  • center: centers data within the column.

gridLines

Optional; applet, Flash

yes

  • yes: enables row and column rules.

  • no

groupField

Optional; HTML

Don’t group

Puts the grid rows into groups, organized by the column specified in this attribute. Each group is collapsible and has a header with the column name, group field value, and number of entries in the group.

If you set this option, the column pull-down menu shows two grouping options: The show in Groups option turns column grouping on and off. The Group By This Field option sets the grouping to use the selected column. Users display the pull-down menu by moving the mouse over a column head and clicking the down arrow that appears

You can use this attribute with static grids only, do not use it with dynamic grids that get their data using bind expressions.

height

Optional; all

300 (applet only)

Height of the control, in pixels.

If you omit the attribute in Flash format, the grid sizes automatically.

highlightHref

Optional;

applet

yes

  • yes: highlights links associated with an href attribute value.

  • no

href

Optional;

HTML,. applet

URL or name of a query column that contains URLs to hyperlink each grid cell with.

hrefKey

Optional;

HTML,. applet

A query column to use for the value appended to the href URL of each cell, if appendKey="True". If you use cfgridcolumn tags, the column must be specified in one of these tags.

hSpace

Optional;

applet

Horizontal space to the left and right of the control, in pixels.

insert

Optional;

applet, html

no

  • yes: users can insert row data in the grid; takes effect only if selectmode="edit".

  • no

insertButton

Optional;

applet

Insert

Text for the Insert button; takes effect only if selectmode="edit".

italic

Optional; all

no

  • yes: displays text in italic.

  • no

maxRows

Optional; all

Maximum number of rows to display in the grid.

notSupported

Optional;

applet

See Description

Text to display if the browser does not support Java or has Java support disabled.

Default: "<b> Browser must support Java to view ColdFusion Java Applets</b>"

onBlur

Optional, Flash

ActionScript that runs when the grid loses focus.

onChange

Optional;

HTML, Flash

Flash format: ActionScript to run when the control changes due to user action in the control.

HTML format: Required for HTML format grids that specify a bind attribute and a selectMode value of edit. A bind expression that calls a CFC method, JavaScript function, or URL to update the data source.

If a URL is called, since the data is passed in JSON format to the URL page, use the function DeserializeJSON.

The arguments cfgridrow and cfgridchanged must be serialized to JSON strings if a JavaScript bind is used to pass these arguments to a URL.

onError

Optional;

HTML, applet

In HTML format grids, name of a JavaScript function to execute if an error occurs.

In applet format grids, name of a JavaScript function to execute if validation fails.

onFocus

Optional,

Flash

ActionScript that runs when the grid gets focus.

onLoad

Optional

A custom JavaScript function to execute when the grid is loaded and rendered.

onValidate

Optional;

applet

A JavaScript function to validate user input. The form object, input object, and input object value are passed to the function, which must return true if validation succeeds; false otherwise.

pageSize

Optional;

HTML

10

The number of rows to display per page for a dynamic grid. If the number of available rows exceeds the page size, the grid displays only the specified number of entries on a single page, and the user navigates between pages to show all data. The grid retrieves data for each page only when it is required for display.

This attribute is ignored if you specify a query attribute.

pictureBar

Optional;

applet

no

  • yes: puts images (and no text) on the Insert, Delete, and Sort buttons.

  • no: puts text (and no images) on the Insert, Delete, and Sort buttons.

preservePageOnSort

Optional; HTML

no

Specifies whether to display the page with the current page number, or display page 1, after sorting (or resorting) the grid. If this attribute is yes, selections are preserved when the grid sorts.

query

Optional; all

Name of the query associated with the control. Cannot be used with the bind attribute.

rowHeaderAlign

Optional;

applet

left

  • left: left-aligns the row header text.

  • right: right-aligns the row header text.

  • center: centers the row header text.

rowHeaderBold

Optional;

applet

no

  • yes: displays row label text in bold.

  • no

rowHeaderFont

Optional;

applet

Font for the row labels.

rowHeaderFontSize

Optional;

applet

Text size of the row labels, in points.

rowHeaderItalic

Optional;

applet

no

  • yes: displays row label text in italic.

  • no

rowHeaders

Optional;

applet

yes

  • yes: displays a column of numeric row labels.

  • no

rowHeaderTextColor

Optional;

applet

black

Text color of grid control row headers.

  • Options: same as for the textColor attribute.

rowHeight

Optional; Applet, Flash, XML

Minimum row height, in pixels. Used with cfgridcolumntype="Image"; defines space for graphics to display in row.

selectColor

Optional; all

Background color for a selected item.

  • Options: same as for textColor attribute

selectMode

Optional; all

Applet format: Browse;

HTML, Flash format: Row

Selection mode for items in the control.

  • Edit: the user can edit grid data. Selecting a cell lets the user edit the cell.

  • Row: user selections automatically extend to the row that contains selected cell.

The following are used in applet format only; HTML and Flash formats interpret these as Row:

  • Single: user selections are limited to the selected cell.

  • Column: user selections automatically extend to the column that contains selected cell.

  • Browse: the user can only browse grid data.

selectOnLoad

Optional; HTML

yes

  • yes: selects the first row of the grid when the gird loads.

  • no: does not select any rows when the grid loads.

sort

Optional;

applet

no

Adds sort buttons to perform simple text sorts on a user-selected column:

  • yes: put sort buttons on the grid control.

  • no

Independent of this setting, users can sort columns by clicking the column head. If selectMode="browse", the table cannot be sorted.

sortAscendingButton

Optional;

applet

A > Z

Text for the Sort button.

sortDescendingButton

Optional;

applet

Z > A

Text for the Sort button.

stripeRowColor

Optional; HTML

The color to use for one of the alternating stripes. The bgColor setting determines the other color.

stripeRows

Optional; HTML

no

Boolean value that indicates whether to make the rows stripes in alternating colors.

style

Optional;

Flash

Must be a style specification in CSS format. Ignored for type="text".

target

Optional;

HTML, applet

The target frame or window in which to display the href URL; for example, "_blank".

textColor

Optional

Flash, applet

Color of text. Can be a hexadecimal value or a named color.

For a hexadecimal value, use the form "##xxxxxx", where x = 0-9 or A-F; use two number signs or none.

For a list of the supported named colors, see cfchart.

title

Optional; HTML

Text to display as a title at the top of the grid. Specifying this attribute adds a title bar to the grid.

tooltip

Optional;

Flash

Flash format only: text to display when the mouse pointer hovers over the control.

visible

Optional;

Flash

yes

Flash format only: Boolean value that specifies whether to show the control. Space that would be occupied by an invisible control is blank.

vSpace

Optional;

applet

Vertical space above and below the control, in pixels.

width

Optional; all

300 (applet only)

Width of the control.

In Flash and applet format, must be a number of pixels. In HTML format, can be in any valid CSS measurement unit, and a numeric-only value specifies pixels.

If you omit the attribute in Flash or HTML format; the grid sizes automatically.

Usage

Most of the following paragraphs describe grid features that apply to all, or at least two, grid formats. For information that is specific to Flash forms, see Creating Forms in Flash in the Developing ColdFusion Applications. For information that is specific to HTML format grids, see Using HTML grids in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.

This tag must be in a cfform tag block.

An applet format grid requires the client to download a Java applet. Also, if the client does not have an up-to-date Java plug-in installed, the system might also have to download an updated Java plug-in to display an applet format grid. A Flash format grid generates a Flash control, and can be embedded in an HTML format cfform tag. For this tag to work properly in either Flash or applet format, the browser must also be JavaScript-enabled.

Note: If you specify Flash format for this tag in an HTML format form, and you do not specify height and width attributes, Flash takes up more than the remaining visible area on the screen. If any other output follows the grid, including any form controls, users must scroll to see it. Therefore, if you follow a Flash grid in an HTML form with additional output, specify height and width values.

You can populate a cfgrid with data from a cfquery. If you do not specify any cfgridcolumn tags in the cfgrid body, ColdFusion generates a grid with the following:

  • A column for each column in the query.

  • A default header for each column, created by replacing hyphen or underscore characters in the table column name with spaces. The first character, and any character after a space, are changed to uppercase; all other characters are lowercase.

This tag requires an end tag.

Note: Clicking the submit button while editing a grid cell occasionally causes the cell changes to be lost. To ensure that changes are submitted properly, recommends that after user updates data in a cell, they click another cell before submitting the form.

Returning cfgrid data to the action page

The following information applies to all cfgrid formats. Also, HTML format grids can dynamically get data by using a bind expression. For more information, see Using HTML grids in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.

When a user submits a form, the cfgrid tag sends information about user actions by setting form variables in the data submitted to the form’s action page. Because the data can vary, depending on the tag’s SelectMode attribute value, the form variables that are returned also vary depending on this value.

In general, the data returned falls into one of these categories:

  • Simple data, returned from simple select operations

  • Complex data, returned from insert, update, and delete operations

Simple selection data (SelectMode = Single, Column, or Row)

The data that form variables return to the cfform’s action page contains information about which cells the user selected. In general, ColdFusion makes this data available in the action page, as ColdFusion variables in the Form scope, with the naming convention form.#GridName#.#ColumnName#.

Each SelectMode returns these form variables:

SelectMode="single" 
form.#GridName#.#ColumnName# = "SelectedCellValue" 
SelectMode="column" 
form.#GridName#.#ColumnName# = "ValueOfCellRow1,  
ValueOfCellRow2, ValueOfCellRowN" 
SelectMode="row" 
form.#GridName#.#Column1Name# = "ValueOfCellInSelectedRow" 
form.#GridName#.#Column2Name# = "ValueOfCellInSelectedRow" 
form.#GridName#.#ColumnNName# = "ValueOfCellInSelectedRow"

Complex update data (SelectMode = Edit)

The grid returns a large amount of data, to inform the action page of inserts, updates, or deletes that the user made to the grid. In most cases, you can use the cfgridupdate tag to automatically gather the data from the form variables; the tag collects data, writes SQL calls, and updates the data source.

If you cannot use cfgridupdate (if, for example, you must distribute the returned data to more than one data source), write code to read form variables. In this mode, ColdFusion creates the following array variables in the Form scope for each cfgrid:

form.#GridName#.#ColumnName# 
form.#GridName#.original.#ColumnName# 
form.#GridName#.RowStatus.Action

Each table row that contains an update, insert, or deletion has a parallel entry in each of these arrays. To view all the information for all the changes, you can traverse the arrays, as in this example. To make it work with a cfgrid on a submitted cfform, set the GridName variable to the name of the grid and the ColNameList to a list of the grid columns.

<cfloop index="ColName" list="#ColNameList#"> 
    <cfif IsDefined("form.#GridName#.#ColName#")>     
        <cfoutput><br>form.#GridName#.#ColName#:<br></cfoutput> 
         
        <cfset Array_New = form.[#GridName#][#ColName#]> 
        <cfset Array_Orig = form[#GridName#]['original'][#ColName#]> 
        <cfset Array_Action = form[#GridName#]RowStatus.Action> 
         
        <cfif NOT IsArray(Array_New)> 
            <b>The form variable is not an array!</b><br> 
        <cfelse> 
            <cfset size = ArrayLen(Array_New)> 
            <cfoutput>  
            Result Array Size is #size#.<br> 
            Contents:<br> 
            </cfoutput> 
             
            <cfif size IS 0> 
                <b>The array is empty.</b><br> 
            <cfelse> 
                <table BORDER="yes"> 
                    <tr>  
                        <th>Loop Index</TH> 
                        <th>Action</TH>  
                        <th>Old Value</TH>  
                        <th>New Value</TH> 
                    </tr> 
                    <cfloop index="LoopCount" from="1" to=#size#>     
                    <cfset Val_Orig = Array_Orig[#LoopCount#]>     
                    <cfset Val_New = Array_New[#LoopCount#]>     
                    <cfset Val_Action = Array_Action[#LoopCount#]> 
                    <cfoutput> 
                    <tr> 
                        <td>#LoopCount#</td> 
                        <td>#Val_Action#</td> 
                        <td>#Val_Orig#</td> 
                        <td>#Val_New#</td> 
                    </tr> 
                    </cfoutput> 
                    </cfloop> 
                </table>                 
            </cfif>             
        </cfif>     
 
    <cfelse> 
        <cfoutput>form.#GridName#.#ColName#: NotSet!</cfoutput><br>     
    </cfif>     
</cfloop>

Using the href attribute

When specifying a URL with grid items using the href attribute, the selectMode attribute value determines whether the appended key value is limited to one grid item or extends to a grid column or row. When a user clicks a linked grid item, a cfgridkey variable is appended to the URL, in this form:

http://myserver.com?cfgridkey=selection

If the appendKey attribute is set to no, no grid values are appended to the URL.

The value of selection is determined by the value of the selectMode and attribute:

  • If you specify a hrefKey attribute, selection is the field value of the column specified by the attribute. Otherwise, it is one of the following:

  • If selectMode="Single", selection is the value of the column clicked.

  • If selectMode="Row", selection is a comma-delimited list of column values in the clicked row, beginning with the value of the first cell in the row.

  • If selectMode="Column", selection is a comma-delimited list of row values in the clicked column, beginning with the value of the first cell in the column.

When you use an href attribute, you can also specify a target attribute with any of the standard HTML target specifiers, _blank, _parent, _self, and _top, or with a specific frame name.

Example

The following example creates a Flash form that displays a set of available courses from the CourseList table in the cfdocexamples database. For more complex examples that use the cfgrid tag, see cfgridcolumn, cfgridrow, and cfgridupdate.

<!--- Query the database to fill up the grid. ---> 
<cfquery name = "GetCourses" dataSource = "cfdocexamples"> 
    SELECT Course_ID, Dept_ID, CorNumber, 
    CorName, CorLevel 
    FROM CourseList 
    ORDER by Dept_ID ASC, CorNumber ASC 
</cfquery> 
 
<h3>cfgrid Example</h3> 
<i>Currently available courses</i> 
<!--- cfgrid must be inside a cfform tag. ---> 
<cfform> 
    <cfgrid name = "FirstGrid" format="Flash" 
        height="320" width="580" 
        font="Tahoma" fontsize="12" 
        query = "GetCourses"> 
    </cfgrid> 
</cfform>