Use cases: ListerPro or RockGrid

[olivetree]

Hi

What are use cases for  ListerPro or RockGrid? Are there any similarities or even differences between them?

Many thanks 

[bernhard]

Hey @olivetree thank you for your question.

I think in terms of use cases you can do quite the same with both modules. The main difference between both modules is how/where data is handled.

ListerPro handles all data on the server side, which means there is basically no limit in terms of scale. Pagination etc. is all done by the backend (php) and only small chunks of the data are sent to the client.

With RockGrid, on the other hand, all the data is sent to the client at once and that data is then handled by the client. That has the drawback that you might hit limits earlier than with ListerPro, but it has the benefit that sorting and filtering is done on the client and produces instant results. There is no need for any ajax requests, no waiting for receiving the data, etc.;

Another benefit of using RockGrid is that you have unlimited possibilities in HOW you present your data. The downside is that you need to define all that with a mix of PHP (the data selection, basically just a PW selector) and JS (the visual part). With ListerPro you can build your data listings via GUI with just a few clicks. That means that you are very limited in terms of visually presenting data.

In terms of scalability RockGrid should be fine quite far, though. Users reported good results with grids having 75 columns and up to 150.000 rows! That's a lot. It always depends on the device though, but I've never had tables with 75 columns and less columns means more rows possible.

If you have a look at the demo image of RockGrid:

How would you build that with ListerPro?

BUT: ListerPro will show page actions by default and you will not have to do anything. With RockGrid every piece of the representation comes from code, so if you need page actions you need to add code to do so (there are helper functions there, but it's more work than with ListerPro).

Oh, I almost forgot 🙂 You can use RockGrid as an Inputfield as well! For the RockCommerce module I'm using RockGrid to select the variations of a product. You can filter by variation name, then select all options of the variation by clicking the variation column, then deselect single items that you don't need by clicking on the option column:

So RockGrid can not only be used for similar use cases like ListerPro but also for use cases that you have used page reference fields in the past. 😎

I'll have to write better docs and make a video about it, but I wanted/needed to release it as it is a dependency for RockCommerce and for that module you don't need to create any grids on your own, you just install the module and use it. That's why for RockCommerce the RockGrid docs are not a necessity.

It's a really powerful module and it has gone a long way. 🙂 Does that answer your question?

PS: Oh and here is an example how you can use it for more complex input scenarios, like adding prices and doing calculations on the fly:

That's also very different to what ListerPro offers 🙂 

[olivetree]

Hi @bernhard many thanks for your explanation. Yes, I see that there are use cases for both of them depending on user preferences or user knowledge.