[Resolved] posting automatically to frames

vtbruinsfan

Hi All,

I have a database I'm working on that holds customer data. The page is set up in 4 frames. The top frame is for navigation, the second-to-top frame is for customer flags, the left frame is for customer contact info and the main frame is for the customer's history and support. The way I've got it setup now is that you do a search for a particular customer and the search brings up all possibilities and then from there you select the customer you want via:

<a href='".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']."?custid=$custid'>Select</a><br>";

then the code is as follows:

   } elseif ( !empty ($_GET['custid'])) {  

echo("<td width='20%' align='center'>
<a href='customer.php?custid=" . $_GET['custid'] . "' target='customer_frame'></a></td>");

echo("<td width='20%' align='center'>
<a href='history.php?custid=" . $_GET['custid'] . "' 
target='main_frame' name='history'></a></td>");

This brings up hyperlinks into the navigation frame that in turn pull up the appropriate data when clicked and posts it to their respective frames.
What I want to do is when I select the customer, I want all data to immediately be posted without me having to select each link separately. So I want the customer.php page to post to the customer_frame and I want the history.php page to post to the main_frame once I select the customer I want to view. Is this possible?

TIA,

Denise

Pig

You can use javascript to load the new windows in each frame. Do a check on the nav frame to see if the customer id has been passed. If it has, then just use js to load each frame that needs to change.

vtbruinsfan

Hi Pig,

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm not too familiar with javascript...is there a particular website you can recommend to help me implement this?

Thanks again,

Denise

Pig

webmonkey.com has a good website for beginning javascript that covers controlling frames and windows.

vtbruinsfan

Thanks, I'll check it out. I appreciate all your help so far on this project. If I could stop tinkering with it, it would have been done months ago!

Denise

vtbruinsfan

Well, I've spent literally all day trying to find the code to help me do this to no avail...now I'm just tired and frustrated with myself.
If anyone has any ideas on how to do this, I'd really appreciate it! Basically I need the data to post to 2 different frames without having to click on a link. The frames are already in place and work fine with current code. So once I click "select", I need customer info to go to the customer_frame and the history to go to the main_frame.

TIA,

Denise

dnast

The way your page is set up, you could avoid using JavaScript. Using nested frames and php should help you overcome the problem.

index.html

<frameset rows="80,80,*">
  <frame src="navigation.php" name="nav">
  <frame src="flags.php" name="flags">
  <frame src="info.php?custid=" name="info">
</frameset>

info.php

<?php
$id = $_GET['custid'];
?>

<frameset cols="150,*">
  <frame src="customer.php?custid=<?=$id?>" name="customer">
  <frame src="history.php?custid=<?=$id?>" name="history">
</frameset>

Just make your links point to "info.php?custid=" with "info" as the target and it'll load both pages.

On a side note. Initally you probably wouldn't use info.php in index.html, but I put it there to make it clear what I was trying to do with this.

Hope I didn't confuse you, and good luck.

vtbruinsfan

Hi dnast,

Thanks for responding. I am a little confused. I did play with your code a bit, but all I can get it to do is open up another window with both customer and history. I've included a shot of the site so you can see my thought process. As it is now, all data goes where it's supposed to, except for the fact that I have to click on Customer to bring up customer info, etc. Also, here is my existing index page with frame info:

Thanks for any help.

Denise

Pig

I don't understand what dnast is saying, but here is an example of the js you would need.

if( !empty($_GET['customer_id']) )
{
echo("<span onLoad=\"top.frame_name.location.href='customer_history.php?customer_id=" . $_GET[cusotmer_id] . "';\"
</span>
");
}

I'm not a javascript expert, but I believe that you need to have an action tied some to something, which is why I put it in the onLoad for the <span>.

If you put this in the nav frame, it will check to see if there is a customer id specified. If it is, then it will print the javascript to load the other frames.

I haven't tested it, but that's the theory.

dnast

Oh, I thought you were using regular framesets, but this still will work with iframes. Here's a diagram.

index.html

+---------------------------------------------+
| topnav.php                                  |
+---------------------------------------------+
| flags.php                                   |
+---------------------------------------------+
|                                             |
| info.php                                    |
|                                             |
|                                             |
|                                             |
+---------------------------------------------+

And the info.php will contain both customer.php and history.php

+-----------------+---------------------------+
|                 |                           |
|customer.php     | history.php               |
|                 |                           |
|                 |                           |
|                 |                           |
+-----------------+---------------------------+

All links to customer information should point to info.php?custid=x with "info_frame" or whatever as the target. If you put the code from info.php in my previous post (plus the general HTML I excluded), info.php will pass 'custid' to both customer.php and history.php and load them dynamically.

So a link like <a href="info.php?custid=4" target="info_frame"> should be used to pull up customer info and history about customer #4.

+---------------------------------------------+
| topnav.php                                  |
+---------------------------------------------+
| flags.php                                   |
+---------------------------------------------+
|                 |                           |
|customer.php     | history.php?custid=4      |
| ?custid=4       |                           |
|                 |                           |
|                 |                           |
+-----------------+---------------------------+

Pig

How does this cause the frame to be automatically reloaded? It sounds like you would have to click a link for the frames to load with the new data.

dnast

Yes, you have to click a link from the navigation page, so it's not "automatic" but only requires one click. The problem was that you had to click two links to get the information into both frames.

What's happening is info.php generates a frameset containing customer.php and history.php based on whatever value for 'custid' is passed.

index page

info.php (can be copied verbatim)

<html>
<?php
$id = $_GET['custid'];
?>

<frameset cols="150,*">
  <frame src="customer.php?custid=<?=$id?>" name="customer">
  <frame src="history.php?custid=<?=$id?>" name="history">
</frameset>
</html>

So links to "info.php?custid=i" will bring up a frameset that contains "customer.php?custid=i" and "history.php?custid=i"

This is not to say using javascript wouldn't work. But I say why use it when you don't have to?

vtbruinsfan

Got it to work with your Javascript, Pig...you rock! I did need to change the <span> tag to <body> to get it to work, although to be honest, I have no idea what either does. Question: the code I put in pulls up the customer data perfectly upon selecting the customer. Can I have multiple onLoads so I can pull the history and flag data up as well? Or is this a question for the javascript newsgroups?

Thanks again.

Denise

Pig

Try this

if( !empty($_GET['customer_id']) ) 
{ 
echo("
   <body onLoad=\"
      top.frame_name.location.href='customer_history.php?customer_id=" . $_GET[cusotmer_id] . "';
      top.frame_name2.location.href='customer_flag.php?customer_id=" . $_GET[cusotmer_id] . "';
      top.frame_name3.location.href='customer_other.php?customer_id=" . $_GET[cusotmer_id] . "';
\">
"); 
}

vtbruinsfan

Excellent...thanks for all your help Pig, and thanks to dnast as well for responding.

Denise