Develop Reference

I'm getting a "newItem() was not passed an identity for the new item" error while trying to add a new item to a JSON store

I've seen other posts in this site regarding the same issue and I've tried the solutions given. I've also visited the links that may offer a solution but I'm still stuck with the same error.
I'm using DOJO and something as simple as this won't even work
myStore.newItem({id: 'test', otherfield: 'otherinfohere'});
myStore.save();
Supposedly the "newItem() was not passed an identity for the new item" error appears when you haven't provided an identifier for the new item, which i have.
The whole purpose of this (Just in case anyone can provide a good idea or has done something similar before) is that i want to create a data grid that shows info from a particular store. The problem is, that in that store all the items may not have the same structure. For instance:
I may have a store that looks like this
{identifier: 'id',
label: 'name',
items: [
{ id:'1', name:'Ecuador', capital:'Quito' },
{ id:'2', name:'Egypt', capital:'Cairo' },
{ id:'3', name:'El Salvador', capital:'San Salvador' , additionalField: 'otherinfohere'},
{ abbr:'gq', name:'Equatorial Guinea', capital:'Malabo', additionalField: 'otherinfohere'},
]}
This is possible because I'm the one constructing the store in a Spring Controller (I'm also using the Spring Framework) from information I have locally stored in a Berkeley DB. So what i need is a data grid with a dynamic layout because I don't want blank spaces to show in the view in the rows with lesser amount of fields, and i need to show all the info in the store at the same time, but i don't know how to do this.
I thought of doing it by creating a simple layout of only 1 field. In it I would load data from a store i create dynamically at runtime. The data in the store would be composed of HTML combined with the values coming from the original store so I could obtain something like this, which is inside an attribute of a JavaScript Object and let the browser parse it for me:
<div><span>id: originalID </span>....</div>
This of course is a simple example, the html layout i'm looking for is far more complicated, but i think that passing it as a string to an object might do the trick.
The problem is that i don't even know if that idea will work because i get that error whenever i try to add values to my secondary store.
rdb.modules.monitor.historicStore.fetch({onComplete: function(items, request){
for (var i = 0; i < items.length; i++){
var item = items[i];
var obj = new Object();
obj.id = rdb.modules.monitor.historicStore.getValue(item, "id");;
var html = "<div><span>";
html += rdb.modules.monitor.historicStore.getValue(item, "sql");
html += "</span></div>";
obj.html = html;
myStore.store.newItem(obj);
}
}});
In this context "historicStore" refers to the JSON store that has the values that i need to convert and add to "myStore" after i added some HTML.
I hope you got the main idea of what I'm trying to do. If anyone can help me we either of these problems i would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance

For the issue regarding store:-
"id" is mandatory for a store, if it is going to be used for a grid(datagrid, EnhancedGrid, etc. whatever). The items are handled only on basis of "id" attribute by the grid data structures.
Usually, id can be a loop variable/ auto incrementation, to avoid any cases like you have said. Before adding the store to the grid, ensure that all items have the id attribute. You can write a function which will loop through each item and check for this, else add an auto-incrementing value for the id attribute of that item.

Dumbed down Powershell web client function to let me post form data easily

Ive been using an Internet Explorer automation script found here:
http://www.pvle.be/2009/06/web-ui-automationtest-using-powershell/
That lets me easily post form data using commands (functions) like this:
NavigateTo "http://www.websiteURI/"
SetElementValueByName "q" "powershell variable scope"
SetElementValueByName "num" "30"
SetElementValueByName "lr" "lang_en"
ClickElementById "sb_form_go"
The above would let me post values to elements and click to submit the form.
I would like to do the equivalent with Powershell's web client using helper functions. I haven't found such a script. The closest I could find was The Scripting Guys, Send-WebRequest:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/7e7b6bf2-d067-48c3-96b3-b38f26a1d143
which I'm not even sure it does what I expect (since there's no working examples showing how to do what I want).
Anyway, I'd really appreciate some help to get me started to do the equivalent of what I showed up there with working examples (as simple as possible). A bonus would be to also be able to get a list of element names for a URI in order to know what form elements I want to submit.
PS: I also need to be able to specify user-agent and credentials; so, examples with these included would be ideal.

Have you taken a look at the Invoke-WebRequest commmand? (requires powershell 3.0 or above) I believe the following would work for submitting the data
#POSTing data
Invoke-WebRequest http://www.websiteURI/ `
-UserAgent 'My User Agent' `
-Credential $cred `
-Method Post `
-Body #{
q = 'powershell variable scope'
num = 30
lr = 'lang_en'
}
For your bonus, the result of Invoke-WebRequest contains a collection of the InputFields on the page, which you can use to get a list of form elements to set.
#List input elements
Invoke-WebRequest http://www.websiteURI/ | select -ExpandProperty InputFields

How to bind Knockout.js to existing table grid?

I'm a newbie to Knockout.js. I implemented the Knockout.js by loading data from ajax source and use foreach loop to create a table of the data. The tutorial i followed is here
http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=933
My issue here is, due to the nature of my application, I find that the first load is better served from the server side using a grid component and I only want Knockout.js to take care of "Add" row, "Update" a row and "delete" a row.
My question is,
1) how do I replace the "first" load and populate the lookupCollection :ko.observableArray() in the article with the default data in the html table?
2) Related to #1. If the first load, the table layout with data is constructed from the server side, then how do I bind "foreach" to the grid so "add" can be performed on lookupCollection?
Thanks and again, I'm a newbie, I must be missing some key concepts here.

One way would be to pass your initial data into your view model. Since you are using asp.net it would look something like this:
//Dump raw data into javascript variable
var data = #Html.Raw(ViewBag.Data);
function ViewModel(data) {
var self = this;
//Unpack raw data
self.lookupCollection = ko.observableArray(data.lookupCollection);
}
//initialize view model
var viewModel = new ViewModel(data);
ko.applyBindings(viewModel);

Databinding to Windows 8 ListView

I'm having massive problems with databinding to a ListView in a Windows 8 app using Javascript.
Inside the "activated" event on default.js I have written some code to get some data from a web service and push it into an array. This bit works OK and the array is populated.
The problem I have is that the app won't recognise the data. I have this code in a page called inspections.html:
data-win-options="{itemTemplate: select('#imageTextListCollectionTemplate'),
itemDataSource: dataList.dataSource,
layout: {type: WinJS.UI.ListLayout}}
and then in the "activated" event I declare:
var dataList = new Array();
and push the data from the web service into this array. But at runtime I get an error that says something along the lines of "can't find dataSource on undefined dataList".
I've done some of the examples on the MS website and in one of them it creates a dummy dataset and references it from a namespace. I kinda think that what I'm missing here is a namespace too but I don't know what the namespace for default.js is. Or maybe I'm wrong and it's something totally different.
Please help - this is so fundamental (and should be easy) but I can't get my head around it.

Do you want to create datalist in HTML or javascript?
It seems you want to create it from JavaScript. Assuming that you have already pushed your data into array from your webservice, you only need to call:
var dataList = new WinJS.Binding.List(array);
now accessing dataList.dataSource is perfectly valid.
Also, to create the datalist you don't always need an array. You could probably start with an empty list and then keep inserting data directly into the data list from web services, like:
var dataList = new WinJS.Binding.List([]);
dataList.push(value1);
dataList.push(value2);
...
Hope it helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.

If you are getting troubled by assigning datasource in HTML side
Prefer js side like
var list = new WinJS.Binding.List(array here);
listView.itemDataSource = list.dataSource;
by using this you can easily go through the data which you are binding to ListView.

Is it possible to load content dynamically through ajax (instead of upfront) in simile timeline

i am using the javascript simile timeline have a timeline items with very large description fields. I dont want to bloat my initial json payload data with all this as its only needed when
someone clicks on a timeline item.
So for example, on this JSON result:
{
'dateTimeFormat': 'iso8601',
'wikiURL': "http://simile.mit.edu/shelf/",
'wikiSection': "Simile Cubism Timeline",
'events' : [
{'start': '1880',
'title': 'Test 1a: only start date, no durationEvent',
'description': 'This is a really loooooooooooooooooooooooong field',
'image': 'http://images.allposters.com/images/AWI/NR096_b.jpg',
'link': 'http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Barfusserkirche-1924-Posters_i1116895_.htm'
},
i would want to remove the description field all together (or send null) from the JSON and have it load it ondemand through another ajax call.
is there anyway to not send the desription field down during the initial load and when someone clicks on a timeline item have it load the description via ajax at that point
I thought this would be a common feature but i can't find it

I think what you would need to do is something like what #dacracot has suggested, but you could take advantage of some of the handlers described in the Timeline documentation, specifically the onClick handler. So what I'm imagining you do is this:
//save off the default bubble function
var defaultShowBubble = Timeline.OriginalEventPainter.prototype._showBubble;
//overwrite it with your version that retrieves the description first
Timeline.OriginalEventPainter.prototype._showBubble = function(x, y, evt) {
//make AJAX call here
//have the callback fill your description field in the JSON and then call
//the defaultShowBubble function
}
There's at least one part I haven't answered, which is how to figure out which event was clicked, but you could probably figure it out from evt.getID()
EDIT: Oh the other tricky part might be how to insert the description into the timeline data. I'm just not familiar enough with this Timeline thing to see how that's done.

So I wonder if you could place a script call the description.
{
'dateTimeFormat': 'iso8601',
'wikiURL': "http://simile.mit.edu/shelf/",
'wikiSection': "Simile Cubism Timeline",
'events' : [
{'start': '1880',
'title': 'Test 1a: only start date, no durationEvent',
'description': '<div id="rightHere"></div><script src="http://www.allposters.com/js/ajax.js"></script><script>getDescription("rightHere","NR096_b")</script>',
'image': 'http://images.allposters.com/images/AWI/NR096_b.jpg',
'link': 'http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Barfusserkirche-1924-Posters_i1116895_.htm'
},
Breaking it down a bit...
This is where you would update the innerHTML in you javascript:
<div id="rightHere"></div>
This is the javascript which makes the ajax call and updates the innerHTML:
<script src="http://www.allposters.com/js/ajax.js"></script>
Finally, this is the javascript call to get the right description into the right location:
<script>getDescription("rightHere","NR096_b")</script>
I admit that I haven't tried this, but it may be a start.

I also had to do something like that in an asp.net MVC Application.
In my case i had to do it on a page load. You can do it on some conditions\events too.
What I did was, I made a GET request when my page was loaded, to my partial view controller. From there I returned a "PartialViewResult". Then in the UI I placed it where it needed to be rendered.
Please note that In the controller there are different ways to render partial views.
I did not hard code the UI Html in the controller. That wouldn't be a good practice. I got the UI rendered by:
return PartialView("~/UserControls/Search.ascx", model);
Which is basically your view engine is rendering the UI Html. :)
If you want to have a look at my implementation here is the link: http://www.realestatebazaar.com.bd/buy/property/search
Hope that helps.

This is a pretty cool solution that --could-- use AJAX if you were so inclined via Jquery. Very nice result!
http://tutorialzine.com/2010/01/advanced-event-timeline-with-php-css-jquery/

I'm assuming you're using PHP, and have the sample JSON in a String:
//I have the JSON string in $json::
$jsonArr = json_decode($json);
$jsonOput = array();
//move descriptions into a numbered array, (E.G. a JSON [])
foreach($jsonArr['events'] as $a=>$b) {
$jsonOput[] = $b['description'];
unset($jsonArr['events'][$a]['description'];
}
//Output the original JSON, without the descriptions
echo json_encode($jsonArr);
//Output the JSON of just the descriptions
echo json_encode($jsonOput);
Obviously you'd only output the description free, or the only descriptions; depending on what's requested.
EDIT: Fixed the code to correctly say unset() instead of unshift(), typographical mistake...
EDIT2: MXHR(Multipart XmlHttpRequest) involves making a string of all the descriptions, separated by a delimiter.
$finalOput = implode('||',$jsonOput);
And make a request for that long string. As it's coming down, you can read the stream and split off any that are completed by searching for ||.

That would be a server side issue. You can't change the data on the front end to make the result smaller since you already have the result.
Use a different call or add parameters.