I'd like to be able to have the person(s) with Manage User rights in the module (not protal admin) be able to determine that a collection of fields gets revealed to certain users, i.e. the Manage User person would check a box that would turn on the subset of fields that would then become available to the user on their next visit.
 

Basically, it's to gather additional input from a group of "approved" users, and conceal those questions from people who have not been approved.
 

Any way to do this? The trick seems to be how to create a field that the Manage Users user gets to see but which is hidden to others and controls the revealing of the additional fields for others.

Figured one way to do this, sort of a long way around the barn...
 

The general idea is there are "Managers" who approve "Proposals." Once a user's proposal has been approved, File Upload fields are revealed.
 

Unfortunately, I had to create an auto assign role called "Proposals - Hide Mgr Fields," which assigns to everyone, automatically. So, if I have Proposal Managers role assigned, I have to be sure to unassign the Hide Mgr Fields role. They are essentially to be mutually exclusive. (This part really doesn't seem like a good idea, but it works.)
 

Then, an "Approval" checkbox that is hidden from "Hide Mgr Fields" role. So, everyone except the Proposal Mangers have this Approval field hidden.
 

There is a problem using this hidden Approval field to reveal the File Upload fields. When it is hidden (which is when we need it to function), it reveals the File Upload field if the checkbox is checked (Approved). However, when the user clicks on "Upload," the field disappears. Don't know if this is by design.
 

So, a workaround....Add another checkbox, "Upload Files." Create one event that reveals the "Upload Files" checkbox based on the Approval response. When the Approval checkbox has been checked by a manager, the Upload Files checkbox will appear for the user, even though the Approval checkbox is hidden from the user. Then, the user can check "Upload files" to get the upload fields to appear.

There must be a simpler way. But on first blush, this seems to work.

Ah, well now I see the errors of my ways! If a field is hidden and the form is saved, then the data goes away!
 

It would be nice to be able to hide / reveal fields, regions of fields, etc. or have tabbed regions, so the information in a large form could be organized into smaller chunks, made more digestible.
 

I think I'll be handling our approvals problem with ListX and I guess this monologue can be considered a collection of feature requests. Probably more suitable for Dynamic Forms, especially if the ability for users to save a form, then go back to edit it later, is added.
 

Dynamic Reg works very well for handling a lot of registration needs. I seem to have this knack for imagining that it can do things that it wasn't intended for.

Jerry,

Hi. Ok well I wanted to follow up on this post. The module by design (as long as you running on the very latest build you should be ok) is supposed to not update fields that are hidden. That being said this does not work the same for the 'Checkbox' field. Its a long story that I won't go into but because of how the checkbox field is rendered the field needs to be cleared out each time before checking the updated field. Because of this all checkbox fields are cleared out during each submission (including ones that are hidden) and this is causing the problem.

If you....

A. Change this field type to be anything other than checkbox

Or

B. Link this field to a DNN Core Field. So go to Admin, User Accounts, Manage Profile Properties and add a new extended property (text data type with the basic default settings). Then under Advanced field options link this field to the dynamic field.

Then you should be ok....

-Chad

So, I'm confused. Here's a scenario that should clear it up.

Let's say a user fills in a text box that is revealed as the result of a combo box selection. Then saves.

Then the user goes back and makes a different selection on the combo box which hides the text field. Then saves.

Then the user reveals the text box again. Will the original content of the text box still be there? Would that also be ture for File Upload fields?

In other words, the user could make the fields' (and the content) appear and disappear at will?

The reason I may be confused is that I've had checkboxes as both the hidden and the postback fields.

Jerry,


Well by design the fields if they are hidden will not be processed for updating... I can see some advantages as to why you might want them cleared out but really the bottom line is that if they are hidden they are not updated.


So...


"Then the user reveals the text box again. Will the original content of thee text box still be there? Would that also be true for File Upload fields?" - Yes


I would have to check for file upload fields specifically but I believe it should be...


Now... If you wanted it to be cleared out you could possibly:


1. Set a 'Set default value' question event to set it to be blank


or


2. You could use a SQL completion event to automatically clear the field in the database when you want it to be cleared.


or


3. You could set a hidden field that is then visible when you hide the file upload (or whatever field it is) and link this same CORE dnn field. This way when the user updates their registration it will update the core profile field and make it blank. For this option you would just need to make sure that the hidden field had a sort order that was greater than the file upload or other field so that it updated the core profile last and therefore took precedence.


-Chad

It's getting clearer. Thanks!

I think the reason I was confused was because of the way I had been using checkboxes which caused some really strange things to happen and the saved data was turning up missing. In this application, I want to retain it.

Oh, and thanks for that tip about the sort order. I have been wondering about the sequence of processing. For instance is there any way to determine the order in which completion events occur?

Thanks for that tip. I'll play around with it.

Meanwhile, now I see why I was confused. Turns out there are a few textbox and file upload fields near the end of the form. (Allowing for a possible upload of 5 documents.) and whenever any of those are flagged as hide-until-revealed, two other hide-until-revealed fields, near the top of the form, that were functioning, stop revealing themselves. The ones on the top are the more traditional radio button answer-reveals-a-question. There are two of those. At the end, with the file upload fields, the idea was more to give the user a way to get those out of the way until needed. Don't have a clue what's causing this.

When the upper radio buttons stop functioning, there must be some error that prevents everything from completing, because a rich text field and some others don't get replaced. It must not be completing the redraw of the form. From the user's perspective, the form gets erased. Yikes! Glad I caught that, because we're going to start using this one now. We won't bother hiding those upload fields.