Remove "Delete" icon from contact grid

virshu

So, I got my first task: remove Delete icon from contact grid because "you never want to remove customers". It somehow got easier than I thought - I commented out $gb_row->add_action() in RecordBrowser::show_data() - around line 883.

But now I am puzzled... Isn't this show_data a generic function across all grids? If so, how come I still have the icon in Notes and Activities grids? Don't get me wrong, this is how I want it to be (apparently, it's OK to delete those) - but I want to understand the architecture even more...

By the way, as I am griping with lack of developer documentation, the user is complaining about User documentation. Quote: of all the application features, two thirds is dedicated to how to use calendar... the most obvious of the functions there are!

ethnar

Hello,

first, to answer your question: show_data method is indeed a very generic function, but you might have slightly overestimated its scope - that method is only used to display data stored in RecordSets - the data structures governed by RecordBrowser. Notes, on the other hand (along with some other modules) are only based on GenericBrowser module (the module that deals with HTML tables) and RecordBrowser only utilizes them.
Hope I did not make it sound overly complicated.

If you comment out the add_action('delete') in RecordBrowser_0, the 'delete' button will vanish not only from Contacts, but Companies, Tasks and other RecordSets. I don't think this is a desired result.
The are two options:
1. Rely on RecordBrowser's "lazy delete". Any time user deletes a Contacts (or any other Record), it's not actually removed form the database, but only marked as "removed". All modules asking for contacts will then skip that record. If desired, any record can be un-deleted by the administrator at any time.
2. Disable access to Delete contacts for all users. It's very simple and can be done using Admin back-end. Simply go to Menu->Administrator->Record Browser, select "Contacts", switch to Permissions tab and remove rules with "Delete" action. The button will still be there, but it will be inactive, telling users they simply don't have clearance to perform this action.

As for the documentation - we admit it's nowhere where we would like it to be, but our resources are limited.
However, please make sure that you visited our site http://epesi.org and especially http://www.epesi.org/index.php?title=Epesi_tutorial
On the user end - I should recommend to click the "? Help" button that is in the top-right corner of EPESI (on your installation). A new page opens with contextual help (depends on modules currently displayed). Again - I apologize for it's slightly outdated, but there is still some valuable information to be found.

Kind regards,
Arek

virshu

Thank you, Arek

No, you didn't make it overly complicated; that's exactly what I was trying to figure out... I see RecordBrowser and GenericBrowser; I realize that there is design difference between the two - but i couldn't figure out what it was. Many many years ago (literary, quarter-century ago :oops:) I had C compiler and FoxPro database, but no books or documentation. The only way to figure out how the libraries work was to run it under debugger. I didn't completely lose that skill, but I got used to having some docs along with code 😃

I did read the tutorial. It mainly describes how to create a new module. While this will come handy in awhile; right now my main task is to figure out how existing architecture works; both from API and UI perspective. I hope you don't get annoyed by my questions - I get to like the application better and better, both from user and developer perspective. My only gripe so far is that there are a lot of places like this

if (complex_function(id)>different_function(attach_id)) yet_another_function(row);

it's very hard to read, and very hard to run under debugger. It would be much easier to have it like this:

if (complex_function(id) > different_function(attach_id)) {

    yet_another_function(row);

}

By the way, there is another forum, called "Development", but I am getting "access denied" in it.

And I will let the user know about online help...

ethnar

The questions asked are by no means annoying me, I'm happy to see the platform getting popular and that other developers see the potential in EPESI to base their own solutions on it.
I also see very clearly that the reason these questions are spawned is because the documentation is falling behind, so I'm actually more than happy to be of assistance here, on the forums.

The development forum will be sorted out real soon. 🙂

Kind regards,
Arek

virshu

Arek,

Not to get overly philosophical, but there is another benefit for having documentation (or, drawback to not having documentation). I've seen on numerous ERP implementations that people, not knowing how to configure the system, rushed to customize it. Here is the same thing... I didn't know that I could disable access to "Delete" through UI (via permissions); so I disabled it through code.

I am looking at another situation - removing "favorites" and "watchdog" functionality. I see that favorites is set by recordbrowser_table_properties table, but watchdog is hard-coded in the code. I also see that there are APIs to disable both (strangely, nothing to enable). So, is there a way to configure through UI. And if not, what are your ideas about disabling those either completely, or just on specific screen?

ethnar

Hello,

There's no way to disable/enable watchdog through the UI. The best way to achieve that is through triggering the following code:

Utils_WatchdogCommon::unregister_category($tab); // disable watchdog

Utils_RecordBrowserCommon::set_favorites($tab, false); // disable favorites

Kind regards,
Arek

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