Last week I showed how to use the new Flex 3 AdvancedDataGrid to group data (that example used ColdFusion data returned as a query, although the example could also be applied to other back-ends, too). Grouping creates a tree within the data grid, so that groups of data may be collapsed and expanded as needed.
Now let’s take the example a step further, this time adding summary data. For example, suppose you were displaying sales orders, grouped by customer and then by order number. When collapsed the tree would list all customers, but no details. When a customer was expanded the tree would list all orders for that customer, but no details. When a specific order was expanded, then the details for that order would be displayed. That’s how basic grouping works.
But what if you wanted to show summary data for groups? For example, customer rows could show total of all orders for that customer, regardless of how many orders there were, and whether or not the customer group is expanded or collapsed. And then order rows could show order totals. You get the idea. And yes, this functionality is built in to the Flex 3 AdvancedDataGrid.
As before, this is a ColdFusion powered example using the default database tables that come with ColdFusion 8. Here is the simple CFC method which just returns several columns from three tables:
SELECT orders.orderid,
artname, orderitems.price,
customerlastname || ', ' || customerfirstname AS customer
FROM orders, orderitems, art
WHERE orders.orderid=orderitems.orderid
AND orderitems.artid=art.artid
ORDER BY customer, orders.orderid
I saved this component as art.cfc in a folder named test beneath the web root. You can save it wherever you like, but of course you’ll need to adjust the path in the MXML accordingly. (If you tried the previous example, you could just add this getOrders() method to the existing CFC.
Now for the MXML:
I am not going to explain the basics of invoking the CFC method via
First of all, to make it easier to expand and collapse the tree within the
As before,
And as before,
As you can see, adding summary data to an
One last note, the example data used here is not ideal, as each customer has a single order, and only one order (for customer “White, Sue”) has more than one item. You may want to add some data to the example tables to better demonstrate how summary data works. Or just use your own data.
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