Having Problems Getting Panel Bar to work properly...

[Robert Gouin]

Ok, so I would like this panel bar to be built and use a data source but the problem is that I use 3 tables for the source.

I have

  tblCategory
-cID                    Auto
-cName              String
-cDescription     String
-isDeleted          Boolean

  tblProducts
-pID                   Auto
-pNumber          String
-pName             String
-isDeleted         Boolean

and because products can be listed under multiple categories I have an intermediate table called

  tblInfo
-iID      Integer
-cID     Integer
-pID     Integer

Now I have created a table adaptor I call Navigation which loads like ...
SELECT        c.cID, c.cName, c.cDescription, p.pID, p.pNumber, p.pName
FROM            ((tblCategories c INNER JOIN
                         tblInfo i ON c.cID = i.cID) INNER JOIN
                         tblProducts p ON i.pID = p.pID)
WHERE        (c.isDeleted = False) AND (p.isDeleted = False)
ORDER BY c.cOrder, p.pName

so I have

-cID
-cName
-cDescriptino
-pID
-pNumber
-pName

and what I would like is for all the products to be listed under the categories.  Below is a sampling output of the table.

2	Skin Cleansers	d	25	311	C-Mollient Gel Cleanser
2	Skin Cleansers	d	20	043	LactiCleanse Creamy
2	Skin Cleansers	d	21	243	LactiCleanse Foamy
2	Skin Cleansers	d	22	247	Multi HA Cleanser
2	Skin Cleansers	d	19	248	NeutraCleanse
2	Skin Cleansers	d	23	286	RosaCleanse Creamy
2	Skin Cleansers	d	24	287	RosaCleanse Foamy
3	Anti-Photoaging	Anti Photo Aging	8	270	CEGA 30+FERULIC Cream
3	Anti-Photoaging	Anti Photo Aging	3	269	CEGA 30+FERULIC Serum
3	Anti-Photoaging	Anti Photo Aging	4	205	CEGA Eye Area
3	Anti-Photoaging	Anti Photo Aging	32	206	C-Mollient Serum
3	Anti-Photoaging	Anti Photo Aging	27	212	C-mollient

But when I try to specify 2 as the parent and pID as the child it gives me errors..

[ArgumentException: These columns don't currently have unique values.]

any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Vesko]

You need to iterate through your data records and create the panel bar items manually.

There is a similar article here.

[Robert Gouin]

Thank you very much for that tutorial, it worked great, but in case someone wants a different way, while waiting for this reply I wrote a function that just makes a temporary table, and that works great as well.

    Private Function makeNav() As DataTable

        Dim rsCat As EnumerableRowCollection(Of cn.tblCategoriesRow) = New cnTableAdapters.tblCategoriesTableAdapter().GetData().AsEnumerable()
        Dim rsInfo As EnumerableRowCollection(Of cn.tblInfoRow) = New cnTableAdapters.tblInfoTableAdapter().GetData().AsEnumerable()
        Dim rsPage As EnumerableRowCollection(Of cn.tblProductsRow) = New cnTableAdapters.tblProductsTableAdapter().GetData().AsEnumerable()

        Dim table As New DataTable()

        Dim currentCat As Integer = 0
        Dim lProduct = Nothing

        table.Columns.Add("ID")
        table.Columns.Add("parentID")
        table.Columns.Add("Text")
        table.Columns.Add("productID")

        Dim lCat = From c In rsCat Select c

        For Each cat In lCat
            table.Rows.Add(New Object() {"cat" & cat.cID, Nothing, cat.cName, Nothing})
        Next

        For Each cat In lCat
            currentCat = cat.cID
            lProduct = From i In rsInfo _
                       From p In rsPage _
                       Where p.pID = i.pID And i.cID = currentCat _
                       Order By p.pName _
                       Select uniqueID = i.iID, pName = p.pName, prodID = p.pID
            For Each prod In lProduct
                table.Rows.Add(New Object() {prod.uniqueID, "cat" & currentCat, prod.pName, prod.prodID})
            Next
        Next

        Return table
    End Function

and then simply bind it.

    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        pNav.DataSource = makeNav()
        pNav.DataFieldID = "ID"
        pNav.DataFieldParentID = "parentID"
        pNav.DataTextField = "text"
        pNav.DataValueField = "productID"
        pNav.DataBind()
    End Sub

Now I never said I knew what I was doing, I just said I could do it ;-)