Saving of different kind of UI views in database

In this article we will identify what is the best way to save differnt kind of views in database without making any changes in database and base classes of view.This article includes 2 parts ,
In First part we will identify the criteria and will design Tables for it.
Second part contains the C# code for classes required to implement in a generic way.

Part 1

Assuming we are working on a application where we need to save different views for eg there are 3 scenario explained below.

1. We have a grid on page where we have some data to display on it. The functianlity of grid allowing user to grouping . filtering ,hiding columns ,sorting and ordering, etc.

Requirement : To allow user to make some change in grid on grouping,filtering, etc. and save it as view and this way user will be able to save different views in database. User allowed to make one of them as default. later on when user come again on this page she will be able to view grid based on the default view selected by her.

2. In this scenario, user have a checklist and chart on page. User can see different kind of charts using drop-down list of chart type, and also able to check the fields want to draw on chart.

Requirement : To allow user to make some change in chart type, checkbox list and save it as view and this way user will be able to save different views in database. User allowed to make one of them as default. later on when user come again on this page she will be able to view charttype and checkbox checked based on the default view selected by her.

3. If we have a Search page and we have several textboxes, dropdown and checkbox etc. Here we can set different search criteria and search on bases of these search criteria.

Requirement : To allow user to make some change in criteria by change textbox text, checkbox, dropdowns  and save it as view and this way user will be able to save different views in database. User allowed to make one of them as default. later on when user come again on this page she will be able to fill criteria based on the default view selected by her and later on she will be able to select different criteria by selecting a different view.

I am thinking now the basic requirement is clear to us that we have to do to save different kind of views in db using same tables and if it possible then write same reusable code.

lets take case One by one and design a database that can help us to identify database tables.

So first we have to save different kind of views for different forms, so we need a table that can identify views

ViewTypes
--------------------------------------
Id                   uniqueidentifier newid()
Code              varchar(100)
Description    varchar(100)

for e.g:
Id                                        Code                                      Description
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
asd-bd-dda-d123-fsdsd       PageName_GridView            Gird view for PageName1 Page  
123-bd-dda-d123-fsdsd       PageName_ChartView          Chart view for PageName3 Page
a56-bd-dda-d123-fsdsd       PageName_SearchView        Search view for PageName2 Page


In this way we can save a overall view for page or multiple kind of views for different section of same page.
If we have a scenario where our domain contains different application for different purpose for e.g Charting is done on a different project and Grid on different and might be mixture of both kind of thing if this is the case. We need a different table to store type of Application.

AppTypes
--------------------------------------

Id                   uniqueidentifier newid()
Code              varchar(100)
Description    varchar(100)


for e.g:
Id                                        Code                                      Description
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
678-bd-dda-d123-fsdsd       AppType1                 Application to show  Gird Views 
qwe-bd-dda-d123-fsdsd      AppType2                 Application to show  Chart Views
ui2-bd-dda-d123-fsdsd      AppType3                 Application to show  Search Views


      Now we have ViewType, AppType and we have to save data of view, Because we don't know what kind of data, we need to save in future so it is a better approach not to save different parameters in different columns instead of that we should save it as XML data filled.
        So idea is that we create  XML data from the data need to save as view and save it as data in table. My proposed solution is to create a table :


ViewData
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Id                              uniqueidentifier newid()
AppTypeId               uniqueidentifier newid()
ViewTypeId             uniqueidentifier newid()
Data                         XMLdata
Isdefault                   bit
IsActive                    bit



Now we have all 3 tables to save data into database and  identify to which view and application it is associated, Whether it is default/Active or not.


To Complete this article also read Part 2.




Happy Living..........
Happy Concepts............
Happy Programming..........