Fixing ‘Search fields undefined’ Error When Generating Source Code for a Scriptcase Gridview

When using Scriptcase to quickly develop a web portal in PHP for administrators to perform CRUD (create/read/update/delete) operations on more than 20 tables in an existing database, I encountered the following error during source code generation for a Scriptcase grid:

The error occurred after I made some adjustments to the grid SQL query while switching between various options in the grid settings and tried to regenerate the code. The details of the error (Search fields undefined) were not shown until I clicked on the folder icon to the right of the Status: Error text.

Suspecting some SQL query issues, I checked the grid settings but the correct SQL query was entered in Grid>SQL menu:

The Search module of the grid was also enabled inside the Grid Modules settings. [The error message would disappear and the code generation would succeed if the Search module was disabled for the grid – however, no search capability would be available in this case]

In other words, there seemed to be no problems with the grid.

So what is the issue? A Google search on the error message returned this thread as the only result containing a hint, The solution: grid_customers…Left:Search…Fields Positioning…middle:the ‘valami’ push right !!!. This was unfortunately too vague. Or perhaps, it was meant for an older version of Scriptcase. Where exactly is the Fields Positioning option and what was the cause of the error message in the first place?

After several more hours of trial and error, I found the solution. Apparently for every Scriptcase grid, several sets of fields to be shown in list view mode (from the Grid > Edit Fields menu), in record detail view mode (from the Grid > Details > Setting menu), and in search mode (from the Search > Advanced Search/Quick Search/Dynamic Search > Select Fields menu) need to be defined. Although these fields are usually auto-generated, a quick check revealed that the search field configuration for this grid was indeed empty:

I added the search fields by pressing the >> button to configure all the existing fields for searching:

The code generation was now successful:

So the solution is to simply go to the grid search settings and re-configure the fields to be searched. Another few hours of my development time has just been wasted on a trivial issue ….

But why would the search field list suddenly become empty for this grid? I guess it is because Scriptcase always tries to re-populate the display/search fields in the grid settings when the SQL query changes. Once errors are detected in the SQL query, the display fields will not be populated and will be filled with some default values while the search field list will be emptied. If these errors are later corrected, the display fields will be populated again with the correct entries but the search field list still remains empty, causing the error Search fields undefined. This may or may not be Scriptcase bug, but in any case, the error message is not helpful at all here.

This is just one of the many scenarios where I wasted my time on understanding certain behaviour of Scriptcase, or trying to locate certain settings. Although I have to agree that Scriptcase has increased my PHP development efficiency by orders of magnitude, the lack of documentation and other usability issues still frustrate me at times.