Symphony.

Isn't this what the Select Box Link Field Combo extension does? (I don't know how stable it is — I have never actively used it.)

Thanks Michael
But looks like SBLFC does not support the kind of filtering i'm looking for.

Oh.

Correction... It does! (after further inspection :) sorry Michael

:-)

Next problem.... :(
Got everything working with the SBLC, but therefore i had to replace the selectbox in my front-end form with selectbox link and now i'm getting a fatal database error (screenshot) when submitting the form
I guess this issue is kinda related exept i don't have "allow selection of multiple" enabled
by adding square brackets [] the form is saved but without the value of the selectbox link field...

Attachments:

Schermafbeelding 2012-04-13 om 14.58.39.png

Got it working...
The selectbox link field stores the id,
So had to prepopulate the value with the id instead of the value. :)

I noticed latest version doesn't fetch related entries in the Sort Order from the Section.

I remember version prior to Sym 2.3 did fetch those in the Sort Order. Am I mistaken?

No you're correct, results should be displayed in the same order as the section's column sort. If not then its a bug. Although to be honest this can sometimes be misleading if an author reorders a section...but it's useful for sections where you want something like Order Entries to be the order.

but it's useful for sections where you want something like Order Entries to be the order.

Ooooh, yes :)

Or a section with countries ... Or ... etc. I'll post the bug.

It's interesting, the 'new' behaviour is technically correct because the settings of the SBL say Limit to the 'x' most recent entries. Prior to this version, this sorting was ignored, but now the values in the SBL are in fact ordered to reflect the setting's wording. The idea being that as your site grows, generally speaking older entries are not as relevant as more recent entries (this of course is definitely not true in the majority of cases).

Making the ordering reflect of the section the entry belongs to is an expensive task, as you will have to join between three tables (the section, entries and the sort table).

Making the ordering reflect of the section the entry belongs to is an expensive task, as you will have to join between three tables (the section, entries and the sort table).

How expensive is it? What needs to be done? This feature is quite useful, imo.

It used to do the joins and sort properly. I know, because I made that change! It's not particularly expensive given it only runs when viewing a backend form, not affecting frontend performance. I wonder why this changed.

I know, because I made that change!

Perfect man for the job, perhaps? :)

It was so nice that the previous versions of SBLF displayed the drop down list in a sorted way. The new version shows it unordered. Finding the values is much less convenient now. :(
And an orded list is more pleasant for the eyes, too.

If we are changing the sort order based on the order in the backend this would drive me crazy. I very often search for a particular entry in the backend by changing the sort order. However, with the SBL I really only want to select new entries.

Now, I would have to look at the entries in the SBL, think: oh shit. I've reordered them. Then save the entry, go to the linked table, undo the sorting, go back to the entry, select entry. Very cumbersome.

Instead, can we please make the SBL useable on all entries? What about using select2? You can then search all entries, so the limiting etc is no longer needed. I think this would solve most usability problems with the SBL that I am facing every day.

Forms Select2 has been released recently.

As a reference: Intelligent Selects

If we are changing the sort order based on the order in the backend this would drive me crazy

This used to be the case up until the recent 2.3 release, and nobody ever complained. Now it does not work, I can see people asking how to order the items by their Order Entries field (or others). Perhaps the SBL field config should provide an extra option to specify how the selected entries should be sorted? Sometimes you might want the latest, other times them ordered by a drag and drop order (Order Entries), other times alphabetical. We could add two dropdowns: Sort Field and Sort Order, like a DS. When using multiple sections this becomes more of a problem...

Throwing a JS plugin at a <select> box isn't a complete solution: we still need to limit the number of entries thrown into the DOM. If you've got 10,000 related entries then it'll massively slow things down. It would be great for the core field to solve this problem (perhaps using Select2 or similar, styled to be more Symphony-like), but the solution is definitely beyond just JavaScript UI.

It would be great for the core field to solve this problem (perhaps using Select2 or similar, styled to be more Symphony-like), but the solution is definitely beyond just JavaScript UI.

Which is why I referred to the Select2 plugin; it can do pagination and loading only entries that are being searched for. So I think that fixes this issue pretty neatly.

edit:

This used to be the case up until the recent 2.3 release, and nobody ever complained.

I did. :)