apex:repeat to show and edit multiple record

Question

I've created a simple VFP that uses an apex:repeat to render a list of custom objects. These objects are displayed as a preview image with a quantity field. This is going to be used to allow people to order any number of each of the items from the same page. These items are simple promotional items so think of things like pens, notebooks, water bottles, etc.

The controller for the VFP creates a List property to populate the repeat. This part works fine. However the command button I added doesn't appear to save the records.

What am I doing wrong here? It seems like it should be pretty straightforward since I already have a handle on the list of objects that were rendered.

The controller code:

public class Promo_Controller {
public List<Promotional_Item__c> promoItems{
        get { return promoItems;} set { promoItems = value;}
}
public Promo_Controller(){
    this.promoItems = new List<Promotional_Item__c>();
    this.promoItems = [Select Name, Quantity__c, Description__c, Image__c, Type__c FROM Promotional_Item__c ORDER BY Type__c];
}
public void submitOrder(){
    update this.promoItems;
}

And the VFP:

<apex:form styleClass="body" id="promoItemForm">
    <apex:repeat value="{!promoItems}" var="curItem" id="rptPromoItems" >
        <apex:image styleClass="preview {!curItem.Type__c}" url="{!curItem.Image__c}"/>
        <apex:outputText styleClass="titleBox" value="{!curItem.Description__c}" id="desc"/>
        <apex:inputText styleClass="quantity" value="{!curItem.Quantity__c}" id="count" size="1"/> 
    </apex:repeat>

<apex:commandButton id="submit" action="{!submitOrder}" value="Order"/>
</apex:form>

EDIT: removed the immediate="true" as suggested.

Answer 1

You have a couple of issues here

public void submitOrder(){
   update this.promoItems;
}

is void and does no redirect. Hence <apex:commandButton id="submit" action="{!submitOrder}" value="Order"/> without rerender="promoItemForm" will not refresh the page.

If the DML statement update this.promotItems could potentially (via a trigger/workflow) change other values you want to display on the page, then you need to refetch the list of objects on each ajax refresh.

If this were the case, you'd want to change your controller to look like this:

public class Listrak_UPS_Promo_Controller {
  public List<Promotional_Item__c> promoItems{
        get { this.promoItems = [Select Name, Quantity__c, Description__c, Image__c, Type__c 
                       FROM Promotional_Item__c ORDER BY Type__c];
              return this.promoItems;} 
        set;}
  }
  public Promo_Controller(){
  }
  public void submitOrder(){
    update this.promoItems;
  }

you still need the rerender on the commandButton with the above.

Answer 2

Surprisingly enough the answer here is much simpler than expected. I blame my faulty understanding of the the VFP/Controller relationship.

In short the only thing that appears to be necessary is to have the property that contains the List of objects declared in the Controller and to have the function the commandButton calls run the update DML.

Nothing else appears to be necessary to do in the accessor functions as long as the constructor creates the list you need.

Many thanks for the comments.