How to implement complex form

[aka]

I have a form which implements 3 level Parent->Child tables.
another words there are tables structured like this:

PARENT
CHILD
GRANDCHILD1
GRANDCHILD2

I need all records from all tables to be editable. When You look at the screenshoot you will see a master record (table: diseases), then below a child record (table: recipes , placed on Recipes TAB)
The Recipes record has its children: (table: ingredeints) and (table: components).

What I need to do is:
place an icon/button which will allow me to edit (upon clicking) Ingredients AND Components. This can be done on another screen/page or in a popup window.
By default SC doesn’t allow me to place anything in a grid/record line other than default buttons. I wonder what would be the best way to implement it ?
Unfortunately I’m not very god with PHP so perhaps I could use some SC macros or JS ? …

I would appreciate any suggestions or guidelines.
Arthur

PS>
here is a screenshoot showing table1, Table2(child of Table1), and Table3(child of table 2)
so I need buttons to edit at position 2, 3 and 4

[aducom]

Well this is quite a challenge. I don’t think you can apply the buttons this way. What might work for you is to create a vertical menu and put this in a container form left the menu, right side your current screenshot. In the vertical menu you can put the edit links which will alter the detail form. You cannot make modal forms in the left menu as it will popup in the menu iframe which probabely will be too small. When you click on a menu item like ‘edit components’ you change the main panel to this single form and after editing return to the screenshot form, refreshing data. It will require some php though.

[aka]

little progress

thanks but,…
Your idea seems pretty complex. I will also have this project implemented into Joomla site so not sure if this would work this way. I am also not very familiar working with containers.

at this point I was able to add EDIT buttons on all 3 grids, so editing existing records works fine…
Now the only thing I need is to have a NEW button. For some reason the button toolbar isn’t displayed, so despite I added NEW button is doesn’t show up.

this image shows the GRID nested

this image shows GRID run alone

so the question is why (when nested) the toolbar doesn’t show up ?
is there any way to fix it?

any ideas appreciated

Arthur