Visualforce page for multiple record creation

Question

I want a VF page that would aid creating multiple child records for selected IDs.

As an example, I would start from Account, select 5 or 7 Contacts, click a button which would take me to a custom VF page on a custom object where I can add data a la Excel style. Contact ID would be a parent ID.

Ideally it would use standard controller.

Do you think it's possible or have you seen any examples?

I am going to guess it could be a good time saver for many teams!

Thanks ~dzh

EDIT: Code I've got so far.

VF:

<apex:page standardController="Electricity_Meter__c" recordSetVar="ElecMeters" extensions="massQuoting" tabStyle="Electricity_Meter__c" sidebar="false">
    <apex:form >   
            <apex:pageBlock title="Populate all fields with the same value" mode="edit" id="masspgblck">          
            <apex:pageBlockTable value="{!Electricity_Meter__c}" var="mult" >
                   <apex:column headerValue="RecordType" value="{!mult.RecordType.Name}"/>
                    <apex:column headervalue="Linked Basket" footervalue="Linked Basket">
                    <apex:inputField value="{!mult.Linked_Basket2__c}">
                    <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" rerender="muselected"/>
                    </apex:inputField>                   
                    </apex:column>
</apex:pageBlockTable>
        </apex:pageBlock>                
        <apex:pageblock title="Selected Meters" id="muselected">
        <apex:pageMessages />               
        <apex:pageBlockButtons >       
            <apex:commandButton value="Save" action="{!save}" />
            <apex:commandButton value="Cancel" action="{!cancel}"/>           
        </apex:pageBlockButtons>
<apex:column headervalue="Linked Basket" footervalue="Linked Basket">
                    <apex:inputField value="{!elecM.Linked_Basket2__c}"/>                
                    </apex:column>   
                    <apex:column headerValue="Day Rate" footerValue="Day Rate">
                        <apex:inputField value="{!newQuotes.Day_rate__c}"/>
                    </apex:column>
</apex:pageBlockTable>
        </apex:pageBlock>   
    </apex:form>
</apex:page>

Apex extension:

public class massQuoting{
  ApexPages.StandardSetController mycon;
  public List<Quote__C> newQuotes {get; set;}
  public List<Electricity_Meter__c> Selectedmeters {get; set;}
  ID accId{get;set;}
  public massQuoting(ApexPages.StandardSetController controller) {
    accId = ApexPages.currentPage().getParameters().get('id');
    mycon = controller;
    Selectedmeters = mycon.getSelected();
  }
    public void save(){
    newQuotes = new list<Quote__c>();
    for (Electricity_Meter__c m : Selectedmeters){
        newQuotes.add(new Quote__c(       
        Day_rate__c=decimal.valueOf('0.01'), /* needs to be entered from VF */
        Standing_Charge__c=decimal.valueOf('120'), /* needs to be entered from VF */
        Supplier__c='Avanti Gas', /* needs to be entered from VF */
        All_Products__c=m.id       
        ));
    }
    try {
        insert newQuotes;
    } catch (DmlException ex){
        ApexPages.addMessages(ex);
    }
    mycon.save();  
    }
}

Answer 1

You can accomplish this with the "recordSetVar" attribute on your Visualforce page.

From the apex:page documentation:

(the recordSetVar) attribute indicates that the page uses a set-oriented standard controller. The value of the attribute indicates the name of the set of records passed to the page. This record set can be used in expressions to return values for display on the page or to perform actions on the set of records. For example, if your page is using the standard accounts controller, and recordSetVar is set to "accounts", you could create a simple pageBlockTable of account records by doing the following:

<apex:pageBlockTable value="{!accounts}" var="a">
    <apex:column value="{!a.name}"/>
</apex:pageBlockTable>

The recordSetVar gives you a couple options:

1. Create a completely custom VF page to list out the contacts, and then perform the logic to create the child records on save.
2. Create a custom visualforce button, add it to a related list on a detail page. Then you could perform the save logic for the selected records on that related list in an action within your Visualforce page.

More info on handling multiple records via the recordSetVar attribute can be found on this developer force blog here: http://developer.force.com/cookbook/recipe/editing-multiple-records-using-a-visualforce-list-controller

Your Visualforce would look something like this. You could create a custom button on the Contact and display it on the Account's contact related list.

<apex:page standardController="Contact" recordSetVar="myContacts" tabStyle="Contact" extensions="MyContactChildCreationExt" action="{!createContactChildren}">
</apex:page>

Your Apex extension controller would look something like this:

/*
 * MyContactChildCreationExt
 * @description Extension class for handling set of records via recordSetVar
 */
public with sharing class MyContactChildCreationExt {

    private List<Contact> contacts {get; set;}

    public MyContactChildCreationExt(ApexPages.StandardSetController controller){
        //Use the standard controller's get records method
        contacts = (List<Contact>)controller.getRecords();
    }

    public PageReference createContactChildren(){
        List<Child__c> contactChildren = new List<Child__c>();
        for(Contact c : contacts){
            //Create child__c record for each contact
        }
        //insert child__c list here
        //return a new page reference to whichever page
        //maybe the detail page of the account record?
    }
}

Answer 2

Is shouldn't be hard to achieve your goal. You just need create search block for parents and in some kind of Map <Id, List<childObject>> then just display in page this Map. And in save action just insert map.values()

But why do you need standartController?