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Refresh selected row(s) in an Interactive Grid

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In my previous post I blogged about pushing changed rows from the dabatase into an Interactive Grid. The use case I'll cover right here is probably more common - and therefore more useful!

Until we had the IG, we showed the data in a report (Interactive or Classic). Changes to the data where made by popping up a form page, making changes, saving and refreshing the report upon closing the dialog. Or by clicking an icon / button / link in your report that makes some changes to the data (like changing a status) and ... refresh the report. 
That all works fine, but the downsides are:
  1. The whole dataset is returned from the server to the client - again and again. And if your pagination size is large, that does lead to more and more network traffic, more interpretation by the browser and more waiting time for the end user.
  2. The "current record" might be out of focus after the refresh, especially by larger pagination sizes, as the first rows will be shown. Or (even worse) while you were working on page 3 of your report, it gets refreshed and your are back on square 1. There are some work arounds (like keeping the offset before refresh and returning to that position after refresh) and plugins that should keep the user on the same page.
But since Interactive Grid we have the option to refresh just one or more records! And to use that feature to update the currently selected row(s), you only need two lines of JavaScript:

var myGrid = apex.region( <regionid> )
             .widget()
             .interactiveGrid("getViews")
             .grid;
myGrid.model.fetchRecords( myGrid.getSelectedRecords() );

The first line defines the IG object, the second line is using the getSelectedRecords method to get the currently selected record(s) and passes these on to the fetchRecords method. The effect is awesome, as the page stays exactly what and where it was - so no scrolling etc - and you see only the data change. Even the "current" selection stays in place.
You only need to think about what should happen when the record is deleted (from the database or from the result set of your query) by your action....

 And to make it even easier to use - and eventually adapt for future enhancements, you should create a simple Dynamic Action plugin. Or download it from here.


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