conditional parentgroup

I would like the following parentgroup to generate output only if [irs.optionorder] is not empty but
- if I put in the parentgroup block definition it stops behaving like a parentgroup and generates a new row for each value of itemid
- if I put anywhere it simply has no effect

Could somebody help me with this one?
Thx.
SWK

When (optionorder='') you want to display no rows at all, or you want to display rows but not grouping ?

No rows at all.
I thought to place another conditional block below this for the case when there are no optionorders.

In real-life terms I am creating a form
- when I have options than this is a dropdown and I want to create and populate it
- when there are no options than it is a text field

I am struggling with the first point - to create and populate the dropdowns only when there are options.

I still cant find the solution to this one.
I thought to do two separate queries - but its a heavy query and it seems such a waste of time to do it twice when I already have all the info I need here.
Thanks for any help.
SWK

Hi Sun,

Here is a solution which is working. But it is ugly...

Your problem is difficult because the HTML grouping part should not be same when "optionorder" is empty or not.

Hi Skrol29,
it is working indeed - using onshow would have never occur to me.

It was surprising to see that if I put in the parentgroup block definition it stops behaving like a parentgroup and generates a new row for each value instead of just each new value. I dont know if this is a bug or not.

But the problem is solved.
Thank you very much for the help.
SWK

Yes I say that too.
You have to put quotes on both arguments. I'll check if it's a bug or if it has sense.