Hi Garrett,

To get a CheckBoxList of Products, you could use the XPath CheckBoxList with the following XPath expression:

//Product

That will render out a checkbox item for each 'Product' node.

To create the relationship between a Customer and a Product, you could use the MultiPicker Relations datatype and configure it to watch this CheckBoxList. 

The advantage of using relations is that it's then efficient, for example, to get all Customers that have selected a given Product (or vice versa):

IEnumerable<Node> customers = RelationType
                                    .GetByAlias("relateProductToCustomer")
                                    .GetRelations(productId)
                                    .Select(x => uQuery.GetNode(x.Child.Id));

 HTH,

Hendy

Funny-- right after I wrote this post I tried exactly that in the CMS -- an XPath CheckBoxList using "//* [@isDoc and name() = 'Product' and string(umbracoNaviHide) != '1']" -- this works a treat, and thanks.  I also see that the data is saving in a seemingly manageable way in cmsContentXml table although I am not sure whether to choose Node Ids or Node Names for storage values....  

With regard to your code above -- this does NOT look like XSLT!  Haha.  I will need to filter the Cutomers using XSLT because I don't know to write or use a usercontrol, that's still very cryptic for me as I am normally a PHP/MySQL guy.  Can I use relation types this way?  Perhaps by leveraging umbraco.library:GetRelatedNodesAsXml() or umbraco.library:GetRelatedNodesAsXml()?

Thanks again and in advance,

Garrett

Hi Garrett,

Good to hear you've got the CheckBoxList working (I usually store the Ids rather than names - infact Ids are required if wiring it up to relations).

Yes, you can use the GetRelatedNodesAsXml() extension in XSLT, here's an example code snippet.

HTH,

Hendy

Hendy, you rock for getting back to me so quickly, I really appreciate it.  That's GREAT news that I can use XSLT.  Wiping sweat off brow.

Now, looking at the code snippet....  This all seems too easy, I have to say.  Haven't had the time yet to try it out, but....

I find it hard to believe that these associated Product nodes (i.e.: the boxes I checked on a given Customer) are going to be returned by this method without even referring to the property on the Customer which holds the IDs.  Seriously?  How, exactly, are these related nodes?  Seems like there has to be more to it, as magical as Umbraco is...

//Garrett

Hi again Hendy -- here's what I've got for my XSLT file which attempts to show the Products related to a Customer:

<xsl:param name="currentPage"/>

<xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:variable name="relations" select="umbraco.library:GetRelatedNodesAsXml($currentPage/@id)//relation [name() = 'customerProducts']"/>
   <xsl:for-each select="$relations">
   <xsl:value-of select="./node/@nodeName" /></a></li>
 </xsl:for-each>

</xsl:template>

customerProducts is what the property on the Customer is called.  Again, I am using am xPath CheckBoxList which is populated by selecting all Products in the system.  You select one or more for each Customer.  Nothing shows up with this code, however, and no errors.  Am I warm or cold here?  Should I just be using the Page Field customerProducts?  I'm not because I want to loop through them and have access to them individually, of course.

Thanks,

Garrett

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