I had a question on my recent article over at EndUserSharePoint.com entitled A jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services (WSS 3.0 and MOSS): Real World Example – Part 1. The question was about the SPDisplayRelatedInfo function, and while I was setting things up to see if I had a bug, I found that there were some interesting ways you could use the SPDisplayRelatedInfo function that I hadn’t considered.
I added a Single line of text column to my old standby Sales Opportunities list and called it StateID. In my EditFormCustom.aspx, I added this call to SPDisplayRelatedInfo:
$().SPServices.SPDisplayRelatedInfo({
columnName: "StateID",
relatedList: "States",
relatedListColumn: "ID",
relatedColumns: ["ID", "Title"],
displayFormat: "table"
});
The States list is one of the lists I use in testing SPCascadeDropdowns, and it has these columns: State (the original Title column) and State Abbreviation. Now, when I typed digits into the StateID column, I got real-time results from the SPDisplayRelatedInfo function as the digits matched the ID of the State item. Cool!
So if I started out with the column empty, I saw:
then when I typed 1:
then when I typed 2:
This also worked if the StateID column was a Number column. Looking through the code, there was no reason this shouldn’t work, it’s just not the use I had intended.
So then I thought, well what if I wanted to match as I type the State? I switched the function call to this:
$().SPServices.SPDisplayRelatedInfo({
columnName: "StateID",
relatedList: "States",
relatedListColumn: "Title",
relatedColumns: ["ID", "Title", "State_x0020_Abbreviation"],
displayFormat: "table"
});
Then when I typed Massachusetts, I saw:
Hmm, that can’t be right. I went and checked the States list, and sure enough, I had some junk test data in there that I had forgotten about. Even cooler! The SPDisplayRelatedInfo function essentially acts like an as-you-type reference lookup!
These examples aren’t exactly what you’d be doing in the real world, but think about the situation where you had a product code that could be 1-5 digits or numbers or something where you wanted to let the user type instead of dealing with a dropdown. If you come up with another interesting use, let me know about it.
It’s always nice to find out that code you’ve written is *more* useful than you thought (as opposed to the dreaded less useful situation).
6 comments
1 ping
LeSanglier
November 30, 2009 at 4:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hello,
I would like to implement your idea but it does not run for me… :-(
I add a content Editeor Web Part on my page and add this source code :
$().SPServices.SPDisplayRelatedInfo({
columnName: “idville”,
relatedList: “CascadeVilles “,
relatedListColumn: “ID”,
relatedColumns: ["ID", "Title"],
displayFormat: “table”
});
2 lists :
- QueryVilles : Title, IdVille
- CascadeVille : Title, NameVille, Descpription
How to include these two lists ?
Thanks in advance !! :-)
Marc
November 30, 2009 at 8:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The issue is probably that you haven’t included references to the two jQuery libraries or the script tags (at least in what I see that you’ve pasted into your comment; sometimes WordPress cuts things out). Take a look at the bottom of this page: http://spservices.codeplex.com/documentation for an example.
M.
LeSanglier
November 30, 2009 at 11:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have check my code and I confirm, the JQuery libraries are include.
(Yes you agree, I got the same problem with my wordpress blog, it “delete” the scripts tag)
How to verify if JQuery take the list information from my Sharepoint Server ??
Marc
November 30, 2009 at 2:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I had one other report that there was an issue with SPDisplayRelatedInfo when the ID was the matching column, but I haven’t reproduced it. What type of column is IdVille?
Let’s move this discussion over to the Codeplex site so that we can easily share code: http://spservices.codeplex.com/Thread/List.aspx
Thanks,
M.
jderoubaix
May 21, 2012 at 5:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hi,
This post is a little bit outdated, but I just need to know something :
I’ve done the same on my sharepoint site, and it’s not working, just 2 lists with few columns.
It’s working with dropdown list, but not with input field…
Any idea ?
Marc
May 21, 2012 at 9:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
jderoubaix:
I’m going to attempt to answer this on your post over on the SPServices Codeplex site.
M.
Interesting New Uses for SPDisplayRelatedInfo: Follow Up « Marc D Anderson's Blog
November 30, 2009 at 11:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] } Following up on my post Interesting New Uses for SPDisplayRelatedInfo, I’ve just added two new options to the SPDisplayRelatedInfo function in the first alpha for [...]