6. Controller

• Even though we have a CRUD form created for us in the database administration tool, we wouldn't want to expose the entire appadmin to our users. So we need to create a controller and a view.
• All Web2py applications have two controllers supplied as part of the scaffolding - appadmin.py and default.py. You typically don't want to touch appadmin. You do want to place your controller definitions in default.py. The code below is for the manage_aliases function found in default.py.
• Line 23 is a decorator to the manage_aliases function which requires the user to be a member of the managers security group.
• Line 24 is the function definition.
• Line 25 sets response.title to "Manage Aliases". The T() function will be discussed later and is used for internationalization of strings.
• Line 26 grid is a type of SQLFORM.grid(). SQLFORM.grid is a high level object with complex CRUD controls. The first and only required argument is a table name. In this instant the table is db.the_aliaser.
• Line 27 The fields argument allows you to specify which fields will appear in the grid and in what order. The default is to show all the fields from the table.
• Line 28 Sets the maxtextlengths of the alias_url column to 200 characters.
• Line 30 return all the variables from this function to the view.

##### Copy the code below and paste into default.py #####

@auth.requires_membership('manager')
def manage_aliases():
    response.title = T("Manage Aliases")
    grid = SQLFORM.grid(db.the_aliaser,
                        fields=(db.the_aliaser.name, db.the_aliaser.alias_url),
                        maxtextlengths= {'the_aliaser.alias_url' : 200})

    return locals()

• More on SQLFORM.grid()

• More on function decorators

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