View with objects in columns instead of rows?

Yes, we have "compare" functionality: select several records by check boxes and choose "Compare..." option from "More Actions..." drop-down.

Thanks for the quick reply, Pavel.



I had not seen the "Compare..." feature, so I tried it. It's a great start, but the intent appears to be for merging records which isn't something I want to do nor enable for app users.



Given that intent, the "Compare..." view does not appear to be *customizable* in ways to meed my needs (i.e. select fields to show, apply filters, show actions, edit inline, flag, order the fields), is that correct or did I miss that too?



Other common features in comparison views is to group by categories of fields (ex. Interior, Exterior, Performance), expand/collapse categories, show/hide any fields that are identical across currently selected products, and highlight "advantages" in a field.



How would you recommend providing a solution like this?

Tim,



I'll try to come up with enhancements to "Compare" functionality, which frankly is not in high demand.

Hi Tim,



I like the idea. I wonder if we can work together on a mockup/prototype for basically pivoting a View so records are in columns rather than rows, as you mentioned in the original post here. Do you happen to have any visuals or prototypes that we can look at that illustrate how you'd imagine this to work in Rollbase. If we can work with you on a lightweight requirements doc, or something similar, that would be a good start toward making it happen in Rollbase. Feel free to contact me directly on this if that is easier.



Thanks,

Matt

Hi Pavel -- Please notice this is not a feature request, it's just a question, marked with the mood of "curiosity".



It's clear now there is no out of the box feature for this, but the "Compare..." feature has some similarities.



The more important thing to me is understanding what paths exist when customers ask for customizations to the views that are not standard.



For example, maybe there is a way to create a completely custom view in HTML + Javascript templates? Or maybe using HTML + JS + JSON/WebServices? Or maybe as a Java plugin?



Or maybe this would require a feature request and core platform development.



What I'm looking for is advice from experts to help me understand the abilities, extension points, and limits of the platform. Rollbase doesn't have to solve every problem, I just need to understand which problem sets would need to be better solved by custom app development.



Thanks!

Hi Matt -- Thanks for the reply, and as you'll see from my response to Pavel, I'm not asking for a feature yet. I'm curious and gave a real-world example mainly to provide context. That said, one of the first apps I'm looking at creating could use a custom view like this.



In a similar vein, that first app also has two other custom views that would be useful, maybe even must-haves, so answering this question about the *strategy* for customization is more important than this specific feature.



Thanks,

Tim

P.S. The two custom views for a group of "intern objects" with start/end date, university location, and work location are:

1) filter by work location, then display start/end period on a timeline widget: http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/

2) filter by start date and/or location, then display school locations on a map (i.e. visualize the location for all interns selected on a map - like http://batchgeo.com/)

Followup -- looks like "Reports" may be the closest out of the box thing for this?

Followup -- looks like "Reports" may be the closest out of the box thing for doing this. Would you agree? What limitations might I run into using it? (ex. "inline editing" would not be possible...or maybe it would via javascript?)

Asked another way -- Chapter 5 intro on Reports doesn't give me a 100% clear understanding of the differences between a report and a view. It seems like there are several features in common, but some that are not shared. Feels like maybe a comparison matrix of the two would help see the differences.



| Capability | View | Report |

| Display Records | Yes | Yes |

| User can change Sort Order | Yes | No ? |

Hi



You can use the create document workflow action along with a document template of a record. set this as a group action so you can target specific records. within this template you can custom code conditions so that your desired results will be dictated by you. I prefer to use html format and javascript for the conditions. no meed for ajax or java as you already have direct access to the record content via template using tokens.



Using create document workflow action as a group action under a list view woth selected records in scope will merge document templates of the selected items



Hope this helps

Piscoso, Martin

Rollbase

Good suggestion. Basically a report is up to three views combined hierarchically based on relationships. Rows with child records can be expanded/collapsed. Sorting is filtering is controlled in each View and each View controls that level of the hierarchy in that report. Hopefully this makes sense -- we'll look to clarify this in the documentation based on your suggestion.



Thanks,

Matt

Correct, and yes inline editing is not available in reports whereas it is in Views.

Beyond adding a feature to Rollbase for pivoting a View, Martin's suggestion is the typical route to take. That is, building out a custom component by using merge fields for looping in HTML and/or JS in HTML or Script components in pages and/or Template fields that are then used in the appropriate pages. Martin's specific suggestion is to use a document template, that could also work if you are looking to generate a non-interactive report or list of records. Actually you could also generate an HTML document with links so the result could allow drill down.



Hope this helps,

Matt