Hi All,
I wanted to see if the more flexible/dynamic approach with a parent linked to itself can be achieved or if I should concede to the rigid/fixed structure approach (I use the same parent/child for Projects & Sub-Projects, but more than 1 level is where the issue starts)?
Taking a house and devices as an example:
Example 1:
House 1
- Ground Floor
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- Kitchen
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-
- Back Wall
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-
-
-
- Temperature Sensor (Device)
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-
Example 2:
House 1
- Ground Floor
-
- Kitchen
-
-
- Light (Device)
-
With the fixed structure of:
Location Building
- Location Floor
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- Location Room
-
-
- Location Area
-
-
-
-
- Device
-
-
this works directly for the first example, but for the second the user has to create a dummy unrequired Area and then every user accessing that device must click through that unrequired level, this could be worse with more than 1 level not being needed as this expands with Sub-Areas.
And with this I can easily show the Floors, Rooms, Areas and Devices when on the Building Level through the connected tables if the Device has a direct link to each of those tables so they are all 1 level deep, I was looking to use rules to fill this in so the user doesn’t have to.
But what I really wanted to do was make it more flexible/dynamic, like below:
Location
- Location Parent (Connection to itself)
I have built this and it works in part, it allows producing the 2 examples above as they are detailed, without dummy entires to fill tables, and you can click through the levels as they are built without the dummy levels in between, but you can’t then show the Devices in a table view when on the Ground Floor for all the rooms and/or areas below, only the devices connected to the last level are shown when on that last level as the device is 1 level deep, and rollup fields have character limits so would eventually also fail.
Any feedback would be great.
Thanks
Dan