Learn DNN / DotNetNuke

Form Validation, Dependant Drop Downs, Data Level Security in OWS

By Paul Deschenes

April 2010

In this tutorial we demonstrate some very advanced techniques for building a car parts application in Open Web Studio.

Throughout the tutorial we cover form input, validation, how to use dependant drop down lists, populating checkbox lists and introduce a new concept of data level security. Data level security allows you to control which data a user can access within a module.

We demonstrate how to use scripts and regular expressions for validating the input fields of a form, how to maintain field values when forms refresh, how to use SubQuery with the onChange parameter within a Select element and how to create dynamic checkboxes for the DotNetNuke Security Roles, similar to the checkboxes used when editing the security permissions of a module.

We also demonstrate how to use and leverage the login module that we have created in previous tutorials to set global session variables for the users of the DotNetNuke site and also show you how to use queries and output the results of those queries to create comma separated lists.

Common uses for comma separated lists include outputs for Google charts and in this tutorial we create a list of comma separated values for use in session variables.

You can download the latest version of OWS from here: www.openwebstudio.com

If you are new to OWS we recommend you first of all view the six part series on How to Build a Knowledge Base Article Module.

The videos contains:

Video 1 - How to Setup Form Validation

Introduction
Form validation
How to ensure form fields are required
How to test the email is a valid email address
How to check the form fields before the submit button is clicked
Enable validation JavaScript in general settings
The form submit link, onclick parameters
How to setup the page smart validate for First Name field
How to setup validation for the Email field

Time Length: 8min 4secs

Video 2 - Car Parts Application, Assigning Security Roles into a Global Session Variable

A Car Parts Application for demonstrating Categories, Sub Categories and Security
Demonstration of the Car Parts application
How to find out which security roles are assigned to a user
The OWS Login module
How to setup global session variables using the Login module
How to assign the security roles for a user into a session variable
How to query and assign the roles for a SuperUser and standard user
How to select the user roles assigned to the user
How to build a comma separated list of the security roles and assign it to a session variable
How to setup the tables in the database
How to add the OWS modules to the page

Time Length: 10min 28secs

Video 3 - How to Build the Categories Module with Data Level Security

The Categories module
How to setup the variables to protect from SQL injection
Actions for working with the database
Actions for the interface
How to create the layout templates for the categories module
Detail template
Security link, Edit link, Delete link
How to add, delete, edit, update categories
How to build the edit interface
How to setup the security in the module
How to build the security edit interface
How to create a query to select all security roles in and not in the category role table
How to build the security roles checkboxes
How to update the security roles