Help: Adding new association tutorial part I

I am seeking help to flesh out a tutorial for a pretty common action, which is adding a button to a form which results in an ajax-update, meaning the input value results in new output without refreshing the screen.

    protected $txtNewCode;
    protected $btnAddCode;   

I am going to have a text field in my template defined as $txtNewCode and the button that will submit that new code is $btnAddCode.

// Add a new Code
$this->txtNewCode = new QTextbox($this); //textfield
$this->btnAddCode = new QButton($this); //button
$this->btnAddCode->Text = QApplication::Translate('Add Code'); 
$this->btnAddCode->CssClass = 'button';
$this->btnAddCode->AddAction(new QClickEvent(), new QAjaxAction('btnAddCode_Click'));

This is all that is needed to actually needed to create the controls in the template.

We define btnAddCode_Click with the following:

protected function btnAddCode_Click($strFormId, $strControlId, $strParameter) {
        
  $objUser = unserialize($_SESSION['User']);    // grab user from session
        
  $groupCode = GroupCode::LoadBySignupCode($this->txtNewCode->Text);
    if (!$groupCode) {
          // If not found, create new group code and save it in DB
        $groupCode = new GroupCode();
            $groupCode->SignupCode = $this->txtNewCode->Text;
        $groupCode->Save();
     }
        
   $objUser->AssociateGroupCode($groupCode); //associate User with the entered code
        
  $this->objUser->Save();
}

I use the existing LoadBySignupCode for the model GroupCode by passing the value I just entered in the txtAddCode field.

If there's nothing there, I create a new one with the value and save it.

Then I associate it using AssociateGroupCode to the User.

Please provide additions and modifications for this before I go to step 2, which is to update the panel with the new value.

To notify the user that it has been a successful action, I added after the $this->objUser->Save() the following:

$this->lblMessage->Text ="Successfully entered code:" . $this->txtNewCode->Text;
$this->lblMessage->Display = True;

I define $this->lblMessage earlier in the QForm with:

// Notification Label
$this->lblMessage = new QLabel($this);
$this->lblMessage->Display = false;
$this->lblMessage->CssClass = "message";

This hides the message, but allows me to take care of all styling with the css class.

In the template, I use the following in the appropriate location and markup:

<?php $this->lblMessage->Render()?>
<?php $this->txtNewCode->RenderWithError(); ?>
<?php $this->btnAddCode->Render(); ?>

Each respectively with create the HTML for the message, the form field for the new code, and the button.

Questions for the tutorial:

1) Have I covered all possible edge-cases for a code that is entered?
2) How do I output in the template all the associated codes with that user?

Thanks, nice work.  Your suggestions were also good in terms of coding practices for people who want to use Qcodo.

Going to write the next tutorial around panels.  Tried to see what was out there and wasn't much so may need some commentary on it.

Thanks, again, Mike.

What type of variable / field is SignupCode?

Please correct me if i'm wrong, but from your various posts, it does look like you're having some issues understanding some of the OO constructs of Qcodo and PHP.  If you don't have a lot of experience with OO programming and design, I would highly encourage you to read up some of the PHP-related documentation on OO (on php.net) as well as pick up a good book on OO programming... I think it will go a long way in helping you to understand a lot of the stuff that is going on.