I am working on a form with a grid or listview which will show data from a related table as a lookup and I would like to show a descritive fields instead of the Foreing Key field value, how can I do this?

In the picture attached, the FK_Appliances in the Grid or Appliance in the List View are the ones I want to show the descriptive field instead of the FK value.

Also, since I am learning SF, I found that the creation of a ListView is a bit difficult than using a GridView for read only data, is there a way to show the grid with empty columns like in the ListView in order to cover the gray area of the grid?

Thanks!

I usually create custom field properties on the business object to handle these situations. Refer to the StrataFrame help 'Adding Custom Field Properties'.  You can also use a database view.

Here is a sample of a custom field property:

<Browsable(False), _

BusinessFieldDisplayInEditor(), _

Description("SalesRep Name"), _

DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Hidden)> _

Public ReadOnly Property [SalesRepName]() As System.String

Get

Dim ef As New EmployeeFileBO()

ef.FillByPrimaryKey(Me.SalesRep)

If ef.Count = 1 Then

Return ef.LongName

Else

Return String.Empty

End If

End Get

End Property

You will need to add a property descriptor if you want to bind the custom field to a grid.

It is always nice to get other peoples perspectives as I am on the other side of the fence when it comes to the ListView vs. the Grid.  I think that grids have many good uses, but for read-only data, I think they produce too much overhead and too many potential bugs since the grid is so versatile and has so many properties and different types of functionality to meet a wide-spectrum of needs.

We tried to design our ListView so that read-only data could be loaded very easily.  Simply create the columns, determine if the column will be pulled from a field in the BO or populated through an event.  For example, you can use the approach that Tim pointed out by creating a custom property...or you can create a scalar method, create a fill method that includes the columns you need, etc. then indicate that column will be "Populated Through Event."  You will then handle the RowPopulating event of the ListView and set the column information for each row:

RowPopulatingEvent
With CType(e.BusinessObject, MyBO)
    e.Columns(1).DisplayValue = CType(.CurrentRow.Item("MyIncludedField"), String)

    '-- OR

    e.Columns(1).DisplayValue = .MyCustomProperty

    '-- OR

    e.Columns(1).DisplayValue = SomeBO.ExecuteAScalarMethod()

    '-- OR

    e.Columns(1).DisplayValue = (.CalcField1 + .CalcField2).ToString("n0")


EndWith

As you can see, there are many different ways to pull in data for a column that may come from another table or may be a calcualted field.

Thanks for the ideas, I will play with them now and post result in a bit.

For testing purpose in order to see which method will fit better to me, I started with an Scalar method as follow:

Some things are different from Trent's post, like e.Column() which does not exist, so I tested e.Values() and that worked just fine! and in the CType() I needed to make reference to a new strong type BO class ATR_BO_Library.ServiceCallsAppliancesBO which is not the way in Trent's post.

So far, I think that an Scalar method will make sense for me because the code will be in the BO class, so I can reuse it all the time, and it was pretty simple to implement.

Here is the Scalar method code:

Later on I will try Tim's way using a custom field property.

I don't know if you knew this, but you can create a parameter and provide the value all in one statement:

It is a handy little trick

Hi Trent,

Thanks again, for checking the code.  And please do not assume what I would know for know, since I am learning VB.NET, SF, SQL2005 and more at the same time, so there are many things I don't know or fully understand yet.

I replaced the two command lines with the single one and it is much cleaner.  I also kind a like the Scalar methods now that I know they exist

In a Browser Dialog, I need also to show a descriptive field name and tried using the same code in the ServiceCallsBO1_BrowseDialog_RowPopulating, but it generates this error:

Here is the code in ServiceCallsBO1_BrowseDialog_RowPopulating:

What is wrong with this approach in the Browser Dialog?

With CType(e.BusinessObject, ATR_BO_Library.ServiceCallsAppliancesBO)

          Dim loBO As New ATR_BO_Library.AppliancesBO

          e.Values(1).DisplayValue = loBO.GetApplianceName(.FK_Appliances)

     End With

Here is a tip...it isn't the Browse Dialog

Sorry about that, it was a copy/paste problem, here is the code:

After a second thought, I decided to try Tim's suggestion to create a Custom Property and after reading Tim's great sample and with the SF help file, I could not believe how easy it was to have 2 Custom Field Properties to handle this situation and not have to add a single line of code at the form level, which keep the things simple.

For the sake of new SF users, here is the code for one of my Custom Field Properties:

Once again, big thanks to Tim and Trent for the lecture on how to accomplish this task.