Can we get a webinar for plugin developers that goes over how to add child items to the control panel? Something that shows how to add a field or child item to the CP. A cut and paste guide.

I think it was covered in the webinar I erroneously posted. Did you get a chance to watch it? Should I PM you the URL? Cheers! -- Smug

I finished watching it today. I didn't see what I was looking for. I am really hoping to see an example of how to do this.

If you've seen my Jango plugin, you'll see that I figured it out. And I'll tell you it's been likely the hardest part of doing my plugin. Mostly because I wanted to push Lua code through JSON. Anyways, you basically have a table display all your child items, make your save_JSON not format one of your inputs fields. Through in your child items (need to know JSON backwards for this) and format them in your invisible field. Now editing them Is tricky tricky tricky. I'm pretty sure David has a proprietary way of doing it, but I used a shadow box and the "a" HTML element to display the fancy box thing and I passed the screens Info through a get. Well hopefully you are confused now. Maybe I'll do a tutorial on it some time. -tM http://theCodeMonsters.com

Or if you want to get really fancy like one of my pending plugins, you can have multiple sets of child items ;)

Take a look at the Menu Header with Image plugin. It has child items. By looking at that simple example you'll figure it out rather quickly. -- Niraj

I worked out with Warren today that we would do a Q and A on the control panel (for plugin developers) next Tuesday. So bring your questions, and we will try to get them answered.

I want Step Children JSON items. Way more fun that way. Susan, Warren, Tuesday, good work. I think the intention (in the last event) was to cover child items in more detail but we never really got to it before the time ran out - I don't think. For some, child items are crazy complex. For others, not so much. It's a matter of understanding that each child items is nothing more than a row in the database with a parentScreenItemId that matches the screen it's part of. Adding a row to the bt_items table will add a child item. Removing a row will remove a child item. There are of course a gazillion ways to do this. The plugins I've created all show literally the SQL used to add or remove items to this table. I thought about abstracting those methods to another class file but feared it would confused things even more. Look in the source code (index.php) for a plugin I made that uses child items. You'll see notes like: "If adding a new item" and..."removing an item" and..."updating item order" etc. Each of those ideas is just a SQL statement to add, update, or remove and item from the bt_items table. The trouble with trying to explain all of this, even when somebody really really wants to understand it, is that many folks can't get their head around even the most basic logic about how the index.php is used to manipulate the database. This means explaining how this works can't be done without first explaining how php and backends and data work together. Not sure we should try to teach "web programming" in :90 minute webinars? Dunno. Would love to, just not sure of the best approach. Pondering this....

In the mean time, i'm happy to set your control panel up for child items for a small fee. :)

David's notes/documentation in the source code are great. I esp likes chris blank child items plug-in. That is a great learning tool. Thanks again. And having a blast with that Animated menu. Top notch man. Anything that puts David in front of a screen with teaching in mind is a win for us all. Some of these concepts can't be covered in 90 min, they really build on each other. Some of the best lessons are in posts by David too. His JSON posts a few months back were gold.