Kendo UI treeview current datasource post

Question

I need to create a folder structure in FTP similar to that of the tree structure on my view. I want to allow the user to edit the tree structure before creating folders.

I have a TreeView with server binding:

@model IEnumerable<TreeViewItemModel>
@(Html.Kendo().TreeView()
          .Name("PipelineStructureMajor")
          .BindTo(Model)
          .ExpandAll(true)
          .DragAndDrop(true)
          )

The binding is fine. With some client-side restructuring (appending/dragging/removing some nodes), I want to post the treeview (root node with all its children recursively) to my action.

 public ActionResult _CreateFtp(TreeViewItemModel root)
    {
        //FTPClient in action : Parsing whole tree and converting into the folder structure

        return PartialView("_TreeMajor", <refreshed model>);
    }

On the Client side, I tried to alert treeview data, it shows the root node text with its Items empty.

$('#createFtpConfirmed').click(function () {

        //TreeView data
        var treeData = $("#PipelineStructureMajor").data("kendoTreeView").dataSource.data();
        alert(JSON.stringify(treeData));   

        $.ajax({
            url:'@Url.Action("_CreateFtp", "Structure")',
            data: {root: treeData},
            type:"POST",
            success: function (result, status, xhr) {
                //Doing something useful
            }
        });
    });

Is there a way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

As my question explains, I have 3 steps:

1. Server-bind the default tree
2. Edit nodes (delete, add, rename nodes)
3. Fetch back all treeview data (including added ones)

After going through the kendo docs and this demo, I got the point. I have to make my tree datasource observable so as to reflect the node-changes. For this I had to use kendo-web-scripts (instead of server wrappers). So I changed my step 1 to:

1. Remote bind the default tree (To make my dataSource observable)

I want my tree view fully loaded at once remotely and seeing this demo, I figured out that treeview only allows one level to be loaded at a time. (UserVoice already queued but Kendo team still ignoring it). So I use a hacky way:

<div id="PipelineStructureMajor"></div>
<button id="createandorinsert" class="k-button hugebtn">Send</button>
<script>
$.get("../Structure/LoadTreeData", function (data) {
    var sat = new kendo.data.HierarchicalDataSource({
        data: data
    });

    var pipelinetree = $("#PipelineStructureMajor").kendoTreeView({
        dataSource: kendo.observableHierarchy(sat),
        dragDrop: true,
        select: onNodeSelect
    }).data("kendoTreeView");
});
</script>

And I sent my data to the controller action like:

$('#createandorinsert').click(function (e) {

//TreeView's current datasource
var tree = $("#PipelineStructureMajor").data("kendoTreeView").dataSource.data();

    $.ajax({
        url: '../Structure/FtpCreateAndOrSync',
        type: 'POST',            
        data: {
            xmlNodes: JSON.stringify(tree)
        },
        beforeSend: function (xhr) {
            alertSpan.removeClass().addClass("loading");
        },
        success: function (result, status, xhr) {                
                alertSpan.removeClass().addClass("success");                
        },
        error: function (jqXhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {                
                alertSpan.removeClass().addClass("error");                    
        }
    });    

});

And on the controller side, I Deserialized string json as: Just showing partial code

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
    public ActionResult FtpCreateAndOrSync(string xmlNodes)
    {
       //Deserializing nodes
       var xmlNodesModels = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer().Deserialize<IEnumerable<XmlNode>>(
                    xmlNodes).ToArray();
            ////Alternative
            //var data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IEnumerable<XmlNode>>(xmlNodes);
       return Json(new { cr = createResult, dr = dbResult });
    }

Hope this helps someone.