Conditional tab with upsell like grid with pagination

Question

I have added an upsell like grid to the simple products tab conditionally trough an observer like this:

$block = $observer->getEvent()->getBlock();
        if ($block instanceof Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Catalog_Product_Edit_Tabs) {
            if ((Mage::app()->getRequest()->getActionName() == 'edit' || Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('type')) && Mage::registry('current_product')->getTypeId() == "simple") {
                    $product_content = $block->getLayout()->createBlock('mymodule/adminhtml_catalog_product_edit_tab_relationsimpleproducts', 'catalog.product.edit.tab.mymodule.simplerelation')->toHtml();
                    $serialize_block = $block->getLayout()->createBlock('adminhtml/widget_grid_serializer');
                    $serialize_block->initSerializerBlock('catalog.product.edit.tab.mymodule.simplerelation', 'getSelectedMymoduleProducts', 'links[mymodule]', 'products_mymodule');
                    $serialize_block->addColumnInputName('order_position');
                    $serialize_block->addColumnInputName('enabled_on_child');
                    $product_content .= $serialize_block->toHtml();
                    $block->addTab('simpleproductslink', array(
                        'label' => Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('MyLabel'),
                        'title' => Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('MyLabel'),
                        'content' => $product_content,
                    ));
                }
            }
        }

As it stands, for pagination, a serialiser grid on a productspage calls a controller for pagination / showing more products.

The problem is this block isnt even listed in $this->getLayout()->getAllblocks(); while it is listed when i load the grid from the layout.xml.

So the standard

$this->getLayout()->getBlock('catalog.product.edit.tab.mymodule.simplerelation')
             ->setProductsMymodule($this->getRequest()->getPost('products_Mymodule', null));

Does not work, any ideas on how i still can adress the serializer block and set the products would be appreciated.

P.S.: Just switching to the normal way of loading a serializer grid is not an option. I need this loaded dynamically, there is another check included to see if the tab can be shown or not.

Kind regards

Answer 1

After some debugging it turned out that I needed to approach things more like a regular ajax call and just recreate the block.

    $this->_initProduct();
    $this->loadLayout();
    $this->getResponse()->setBody($this->getLayout()->createBlock('mymodule/adminhtml_catalog_product_edit_tab_relationsimpleproducts', 'catalog.product.edit.tab.mymodule.simplerelation')->toHtml());

Now the grid is dynamicly loaded in the tab and all pagination functions work.