Refreshing the Model when using WebTabs

Hello...

I am using WebTabs to create "pages" of data entry fields.

However, if I enter some data into a field and switch to another tab, the data is not saved unless I press an action button first (before switching tabs) to save the state.

The code I am using to create the tabs is as follows:

recordEditTabComponent
    | e tabs sortedList |
    e := WebElement new.
    sortedList := self observee abstractor sortedPages.
    tabs := WebTabs new.
    sortedList do: [ :each |
        (each = self observee)
            ifTrue: [tabs addText: each label attributes: #bold]
            ifFalse: [tabs addLinkTo: each text: each label view: #edit parameter: 'id' value: self currentRecord id asString ]].
    tabs selected: (sortedList indexOf: self observee abstractor currentDesignPage).
    e add: tabs.
    ^ e

which is a little strange, I guess because the App object is a view of a "page layout" for "fields" that can retrieve their data for a given record, which is what the parameter is being used for.  In this way I do not create a domain model object for every page for every record; I re-use the same page layout for every record instead.

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?

Thanks,

Rob

Hi Rob,

I'm just shooting into the blue here, as I don't know how your
tabs are implemented.

From the seat of my pants, I can only see one way of getting this to
work: The complete form would have to be loaded and divided into
parts corresponding to the tabs:

page
       form
               tabs
                       tab1
                       tab2
                       tab3
               form contents of tab pages
                       div id contents
                               div id tab1
                               div id tab2
                               div id tab3
               submit button

The rest could only be CSS and a tiny bit of javascript, as you'd have
to avoid sending back a request to the server, as you'd lose your
entered data with it.

The default CSS for this page would be

       div#contents > div { display: none; }
       div#tab1 { display: block; }

to display only the first content page and hide the others.
The links of the tabs would only need to update the style properties,
e.g. by hiding all of them and displaying only their corresponding div.

With this setup, you get the complete form with the original page load,
you only see one tab page at a time, your browser remembers your entered
data as you switch between tabs, and the final click on the submit
button sends the complete form back to the server in one go.

Now the question: Do WebTabs work this way?

If not, you'd probably have to send the data back to the server
piecewise, using onBlur event handlers, but this might become ugly
quickly.

Just making Smalltalk,