problem setting value in auto complete box with edit form

Question

Hi

I have a form that gets some data from a VIEW in a legacy database. I can't change the structure so there's no way of modifying things to fit better the LS model.

I am using a local property on the form to show a drop down of the data in this legacy data. To complicate matters further this data is filtered in LS on an ID passed into a query built against the view.

I have most of what I need working. When the form loads I can see the drop down with the correct data. I have a save button with the following code in it which works to put the value from the auto complete into the main entity ( co_Consultants_Role):

 if (prpWorkFlowRoles != null)
            {
                co_Consultants_Role.Expertise = prpWorkFlowRoles.WorkflowRole;
            }  
            this.DataWorkspace.EnhesaSQLData.SaveChanges();
            this.CloseEditForm();

The problem I have is that when the form loads I need the auto complete box to show the data from co_Consultants_Role.Expertise property. i.e. the original data for the property.

But, whatever I try to do in the screen activate event or InitialiseDataWorkspace events the property (prpWorkFlowRoles ) which is the autocomplete box is always null.

if (prpWorkFlowRoles != null){

// code here never gets executed

}

Am I doing something silly?  Can anyone suggest what I'm doing wrong?  The examples I see all work nicely when the dataset has been built inside LS but whatever i do I cant seem to get it to work in my situation.

thanks

Gus

Answer 1

I think the closest I have come is with this in the edit screen InitializeDataWorkSpace.

this.prpWorkFlowRoles = DataWorkspace.EnhesaSQLData.LS_VIEW_WorkFlowRolesSorteds.FirstOrDefault();

But this sets the auto complete box to the first item in the view that populates the control. I want to set it to the current row being edited. How do I get the edit row property in a form that I can use to set the auto complete control?

thanks

Gus

Answer 2

solved,

thankfully I got there in the end..

what a palaver though.. I'm starting to feel really old..

the first thing I did at Yann Duran's suggestion was to use a single form for both add and edit based on Beth Massi vid:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lightswitch/ff945359

That solved many other issues in one hit.  And I got around the drop down problem with this code in the screen Data workspace Initialise.

 // get the current expertise value
                string Exp = this.co_Consultants_Role.Expertise;

                // set the auto complete control to that value
                LS_VIEW_WorkFlowRolesSorted wfr = this.DataWorkspace.EnhesaSQLData.LS_VIEW_WorkFlowRolesSorteds.Where(a => a.WorkflowRole==Exp).FirstOrDefault();
                if (wfr != null)
                {
                    this.prpWorkFlowRolesSorted = wfr;
                }

I needed to add the view itself to the screen and then use that to get a row that matched what is in the entity and then set the auto-complete to that.

This thread got me there:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/lightswitch/thread/a0d01421-beee-4f04-b23f-36717c83671f/

there must be a simpler way but for now I have something that does the job.

Gus