Selecting nothing from List Field
Steve asked 7 years ago
We’ve got an extender window with one of the fields set up as a list. This list helps us to mark a customer as part of a special promo program. Once an item is selected, how do we set that field back to nothing later on for a customer? Can’t seem to just hit delete and there is no ‘blank’ option to select. We also can’t add a blank option. So, how best to handle?
Thanks,
Steve
Thanks,
Steve
Answers
Patrick Roth Staff answered 7 years ago
Steve,
This is something that has bothered me also. Once you select a value in a drop list – we can “un-select” it.
I’d suggest adding a blank – but our UI also doesn’t let you enter blanks into a list item.
So the only worksarounds I can think of are:
1. You can manipulate the data on the back end. Assuming this isn’t something that happens often, we can fix the extender data to be 0 for that record which is “unselected”
2. create a list item called <none> or <empty> or whatever makes sense. Then select that instead of nothing.
3. Or you could hack the list a bit.
You could insert a record into the EXT20021 table for the empty list item and then leaving the STRNG132 to be empty. Now Extender will show the empty list item in the list so you can select it.
you might want to sort by alpha order otherwise your empty space will be at the bottom.
i’d export your extender window and then re-import it into a test company before doing this since we’re hacking things a bit.
but I’ve done this before and it works fine. didn’t test too much after it though – for example what happens if I open the list to add a different item? Will it remove the empty space?
patrick
This is something that has bothered me also. Once you select a value in a drop list – we can “un-select” it.
I’d suggest adding a blank – but our UI also doesn’t let you enter blanks into a list item.
So the only worksarounds I can think of are:
1. You can manipulate the data on the back end. Assuming this isn’t something that happens often, we can fix the extender data to be 0 for that record which is “unselected”
2. create a list item called <none> or <empty> or whatever makes sense. Then select that instead of nothing.
3. Or you could hack the list a bit.
You could insert a record into the EXT20021 table for the empty list item and then leaving the STRNG132 to be empty. Now Extender will show the empty list item in the list so you can select it.
you might want to sort by alpha order otherwise your empty space will be at the bottom.
i’d export your extender window and then re-import it into a test company before doing this since we’re hacking things a bit.
but I’ve done this before and it works fine. didn’t test too much after it though – for example what happens if I open the list to add a different item? Will it remove the empty space?
patrick
Mark Anderson Staff answered 7 years ago
A while back, we have created a suggestion for the development team to add the ability to add a “blank” to the drop down list. The other option, if you are using Extender Enterprise version, you can use the Clear Data option to change to a blank.