Method for defining list
Description
Specifies the data source for the Spin List control options.
Discussion
A Spin List control can be populated with static data or data that is dynamically calculated via a Data Series.
The Method for defining list can be one of the following options:
- Option
- Description
- Static
Data is defined at design-time as a static list.
- DataSeries
Data is defined using a Data Series.
- ClientSideDataCache
Data is defined using the Client-side Data Cache.
Populating from the Client-side Data Cache
You can specify that the data source for a SpinList is a Client-side Data Cache item. This is particularly useful in Cordova applications that are designed to work offline. Here is why:
Say you build a UX component that has a SpinList control and you specify that the control should be populated with data from a Data Series. At the time your Cordova application is built, the SpinList with be populated with the data in the Data Series.
Once the Cordova app is installed on a device, the SpinList will continue to have the data that was in the Data Series at the time the Cordova app was built. If you refresh the Data Series the SpinList will now have up to date data, but this data has not been persisted on the device. So, this means that if you exit the App and re-launch it you are back to having stale data in the SpinList. If you do not have a connection you would not be able to make a callback to the server to refresh the data in the SpinList.
However, if you specify that the SpinList is populated from data in a Client-side Data Cache, the Client-side Data cache will be refreshed automatically when the App is launched and then the SpinList will be populated with the up-to-date data. The data that was retrieved from the server will be persisted on the device (assuming the Client-side Data Cache item was configured to persist data on the device). This means that if you exit the App and then re-launch it (while no connection is available), the SpinList will be populated with the data that was fetched from the server the previous time the App was launched (presuming that at that time a connection to the server was available).