CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I'm using CRM.loadForm to load a custom search into a dialog. Ultimately, what I'm trying to do is:

• Load the search form
• Allow the user to run a search
• Allow the user to select some number of contacts from the result set, and choose a custom task from the actions menu
• Listen for my custom task in hook_civicrm_postProcess and add some stuff to $form->ajaxResponse
• Listen for CRM.loadForm's crmFormSuccess event and do stuff with $form->ajaxResponse

This has been a little more challenging than I expected. I'm stuck on #2.

Loading the search form was no problem. When I submit it, however, the dialog closes. (This is also the case with the core "Find Contacts" search, which is not a custom search.) I tried adding autoClose: false to the CRM.loadForm parameters, but this had no effect.

By inspecting the params on the callback to the crmFormSuccess event, I learned that the button name for the search forms is "refresh." So I tried again, this time passing refreshAction: ['refresh'] to CRM.loadForm. This doesn't work either; the userContext in the AJAX response is wrong (I get "/civicrm/event/manage?reset=1" regardless of where I open the dialog). The dialog stays open, but the content is unexpected. "Okay," I say to myself, "this doesn't feel right, but let's set the userContext manually. And let's keep things simple by using Find Contacts instead of a custom search." So I listen on hook_civicrm_postProcess, and when the conditions are right, I do:

$qfKey = CRM_Utils_Array::value('qfKey', $form->_submitValues);
$form->ajaxResponse['userContext'] = '/civicrm/contact/search?_qf_Custom_display=true&qfKey=' . $qfKey;

Good news: when I submit the form, the dialog refreshes and the search results are displayed. I can search multiple times, and the dialog stays open. There seems to be a minor JS issue; I can select an action in the task list without first hitting a "Select Records" radio button.

Bad news: the behavior is different for custom searches. To rule out issues with my custom form as the root of the problem, I tested with a core custom form; I arbitrarily picked Zip Code Range. As a result, my hook_civicrm_postProcess code now looks like this:

$qfKey = CRM_Utils_Array::value('qfKey', $form->_submitValues);
$form->ajaxResponse['userContext'] = '/civicrm/contact/search/custom?_qf_Custom_display=true&csid=10&qfKey=' . $qfKey;

The first time I submit the custom form, it is refreshed with search results. After that, I can't submit the form again. If I change the search criteria and hit submit, the CiviCRM spinner appears for a hot second, but the search criteria are returned to their original state and the search results are not refreshed. Moreover, crmFormSuccess isn't raised again, hook_civicrm_postProcess doesn't fire, and Civi's error logs are clean. The custom form is afflicted by the same JS issue as the "Find Contacts" search; I can select an action in the task list without hitting a "Select Records" radio button.

Any idea what's going on with the custom searches? Or why putting a search in a dialog doesn't Just Work^TM?

Thanks!

[facepalm]I took the custom search approach because it seemed most expeditious and because I didn't want to reinvent any already-existing wheels.[/facepalm] I've already started down a rabbit hole of custom-search related issues, but if it's a deep hole (and it seems from your post that it is) I'm not interested in continuing to dig.

Would you agree that client-side MVC would be a more fruitful approach? It seems a little wasteful to rebuild a form that already exists, but I am jumping through more hoops than I expected to be. In some ways a client-side approach is a more straightforward.

Everything I need is supported by advanced search. I guess I'll change course and handle this clientside. The context is that I'm trying to give CiviVolunteer users a way to populate needs by searching contacts based on custom fields (e.g., I need volunteers with a skill level of X or better in skill Y). Thanks.