Address "To" field for SMS message window

[ckai]

I really wasn't sure where to put this but thought it was more a presentation problem than anything.

We're looking at adding a new feature to our solution where we can SMS staff with job details. The idea was to have a pop up window which displays a 'To' field and a 'Message' field. This layout is run by a temp table (sms_table) which will get cleared once the message(s) have been sent. They're going to be sent through email so all copies of the message will be stored in the email client.

So, I have a portal the shows jobs which, when clicked, builds the message part up. I worked out a nifty counter (proud of this ) so that side of things is sorted.

My issue is the address field. I don't know how I should go about setting it up. What I was thinking is having a list of staff, that, again you could click and it would build the address field like the message field. Separating the addresses with the appropriate separator (i.e. comma). My issue is, if you want to remove an address, it'll be a bit fiddly to highlight the address and delete. I was planning on having the selectable list "dwindling". This would cause problems if the address field was simply a text field.

Then I thought I could make the address field a portal, so it would just list all the addresses. Dwindling lists between portals would work how they should. The problem is, I don't know how to relate this to the message part. If I have a portal for the address field, I will have 1 record for every address. At the moment, the sms_table is set up to have only 1 record; To and Message. The To field can have multiple addresses, and the message field just has the message the same for everyone. Using the portal setup, each record will have their own address and the message repeated for every record. I suppose this is fine since it's a temp table and will be cleared but doesn't seem the best way.

The simple way would be to leave everything as it is, build the To field from clicking on the staff list but not have the staff list dwindling. Simple, but not very flash

Any ideas on how I should set it up?

[ckai]

I either confused everyone and didn't explain myself properly, or it's too simple to even bother with, or I stumped everyone

I actually had a brain wave yesterday and came up with a solution. I now have a flag_sms field in the staff table. On my SMS layout, instead of showing the 'To' field, I show a staff portal with the flag_sms field equal to 1. The plan is to add the addresses to the 'To' address field when I send the message, maybe with some sort of loop. I probably want need a loop but haven't thought that much ahead.

I did think of having the message part global and then adding each staff address as a new record, but I realized that on the sms layout it would show the staff address (i.e. [email protected]) , instead of their name which would be difficult to keep track of.

So, a simple solution is by far the best...at this stage :)