PHPRunner does AJAX

AJAX - is a development technique used for creating interactive web applications. (Wikipedia)

PHPRunner creates AJAX-enabled PHP applications. With google-like auto-suggest feature you can search information easier than even before. Drop down boxes powered by AJAX help the web pages to load much faster. The record details don't have to be displayed on the separate page anymore. Quick hover over the record will immediately bring a detail preview. Similar auto-suggest concept has been applied to the lookup fields. Now, instead of scrolling though all available values in the dropdown box, you can choose the variant from suggested list which is dynamically refreshed as you are typing in the text box.

AJAX-based Auto-Suggest

This feature has two variations and is enabled on the Basic and Advanced search pages. It is similar in fashion to the "Google Suggest" that also uses AJAX technologies. Auto-suggest makes your web site much more user-friendly. To see this feature in action just start typing a text in the search box.

The picture below demonstrates the search-suggest feature on the basic search page:

On the Advanced search page auto-suggest looks like this:

By default, search-suggest results include only those values that begin with the searched phrase. If you want to show all the values in which the searched phrase is present you need to change the $suggestAllContent variable value in the dbcommon.php file to True. In this case the search phrase in the search-suggest list will be highlighted as shown on the picture below:

AJAX-based dependent dropdown boxes

In PHPRunner dependent dropdown boxes are AJAX driven. This feature works similar as in the previous version but now the content of dropdown boxes is loading real time using AJAX technologies instead of waiting for all the content to load with the load of the web page. Therefore, web pages are loading much faster now.

Details Records Preview

In PHPRunner you can display details records preview directly on the list page. All you need to do is hover over the detail link. The following picture demonstrates how the details preview works:

The number of records in the details preview is limited. Only first ten details are displayed. If there is an image in the details then only first five details are displayed.

Lookup wizard as Edit box

This feature is added to lighten the search among the large amounts of data. Now, you can choose the variant from AJAX popup, which will be refreshing as you are typing in the text box, instead of searching through all the values in the dropdown boxes.

After you build your project, you can see how it works on the Edit, Add, and Search pages. When you begin to type in the edit box AJAX popup will appear where you can choose one of the suggested values. If you type in the text box the value that doesn't exist in the database and move to another control, the border of the text box will change color to red to grab your attention. Once you correct the value, it will change back to normal.

If you try to submit the form with an incorrect value entered in the text box, the form will be submitted with the previous correctly entered value.