checkbox

Field Value

Page name checkbox

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Page title checkbox

Content

The checkbox widget

In the fields.ini file you can specify a field to be edited using a checkbox widget by setting widget:type to checkbox. A checkbox widget can function in 2 different ways depending on the parameters that you assign to the field.

Table of Contents

The checkbox widget

Example 1: A TinyInt (boolean) field

Example 2: A repeating field (multiple checkboxes for one field

Example 3: Using a "Categories" relationship

Related Parameters

Example 1: A TinyInt (boolean) field

Suppose our table has a tinyint field named "Active" which specifies whether the record is currently in use. This field will store a value of either 0 or 1. So we configure this field in our fields.ini? file to use a checkbox widget as follows:

[Active]
  widget:type=checkbox

Results:

Example 2: A repeating field (multiple checkboxes for one field

Checkboxes can store multiple values in a single field by setting the vocabulary? directive and applying it to a varchar or text field. In this case there will be one value saved per line.

In this example, suppose we have a varchar field named categories which uses the categories valuelist? to specify the different categories that can be checked at any given time. Our valuelists.ini file might look like:

[categories]
    __sql__ = "select id,name from categories"

And our fields.ini file looks like:

[categories]
    widget:type=checkbox
    vocabulary=categories

Note that you don't need to name the field the same as the valuelist. It just worked out this way.

Now if we save a record with categories 1, 3, and 5 checked, then the categories column of our row in the database will store something like:

1
3
5

i.e. one category id per line. Note that using this method, your database will not be normalized because you are storing multiple values in a single field. However in many applications this is sufficient.

Results:

Example 3: Using a "Categories" relationship

"""(Note: This example requires Xataface version 1.2 or higher)"""

Example 2 above shows how we can easily add and remove a record from multiple categories using checkboxes. However it required multiple pieces of information to be stored in a single database field which may or may not be advantageous for your database design. If you're looking for a more normalized database schema you would probably design your database as follows for this case:

Books table - Stores all of the books.
Categories table - Stores all of the categories
Book_Categories table - Stores mapping of books to categories.

With out table structure we will first want to define a relationship from Books to Categories to reflect the connection between books and categories. The relationships.ini file for this might look like:

[categories]
    Books.Book_ID="$Book_ID"
    Book_Categories.Category_ID=Categories.Category_ID

And our fields.ini file for the Books table might look like:

[categories]
    widget:type=checkbox
    transient=1
    relationship=categories

Note that there is no need for our field to be named the same as our relationship. It just turned out this way. Also note that we used the transient=1 flag here because the Books table no longer has a categories field in the database. This field is defined purely for the benefit of the edit form so that we will get a checkbox group to select the book's categories.

Results:

Related Parameters

vocabulary? - Assigns a valuelist to be used as the options for this checkbox group.
repeat? - A boolean value indicating whether this field should be treated as a 'repeating field'. A repeating field is one with multiple checkboxes. By default the checkbox widget operates as a single checkbox that controls a boolean value.
relationship - (Only applicable to transient? fields). If the relationship directive is set then this field can be used to add/remove records from a relationship.

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checkbox

The checkbox widget

Example 1: A TinyInt (boolean) field

Example 2: A repeating field (multiple checkboxes for one field

Example 3: Using a "Categories" relationship

Related Parameters