Enter New, Edit or View from a process

nlarson

I am trying to make more use of processes to create input wizards and similar easy of use features but running into some issues when a process is used to open a form.

Often (at least in my app) a form runs off the screen. When that happens via a pop-up window from a process, there are no scroll bars and the buttons are unviewable leaving the user to move the form around to try to get to the buttons. Depending on their screen resolution many cannot move it far enough and then they have to exit the app to clear the form (since the rest of the UI is 'greyed' out).

There is a option when selecting a process in the menu designer to Output to a new tab or default. Neither seem to have any effect.

Is all this by design? Am I missing something?

aware_support

If you use EDIT or ENTER NEW to display a form it will always be displayed in a pop-up window. Use VIEW to display it differently.

Specify height and width of the form explicitly if you want scroll bars.

nlarson

Those are some pretty significant limitations

Adding size scrolls the form, not the panel. The buttons can still be off the screen unless you use a very small form space, say 450px tall.
Since you can not specify 'using' which form for View or Edit (as you can with enter new) all default forms would have to be designed with small screens in mind.
View only works different if called on it's own. If used from a process like Enter New ABC, VIEW ThisABC - it still opens in a pop up
If buttons are set to topbar, they just don't show up at all - Only the Save and Close defaults.
Cosmetic issue - adding a vertical scrollbar (by defining height) also adds a small horizontal that is only present due to the vertical and serves no purpose.

aware_support

Shouldn't be the case unless there is a bug - could you please attach screenshot?
You CAN specify USING
No, VIEW should work fine in a process if it is the last action there - which it should be, if logically this is the last thing you do. If not, then it must be a popup because the process needs to continue after this

nlarson

Result! Thanks for the help. A two things helped sort this out.

I took my original process which contained 4 rules and broke it down into 4 processes, each with VIEW ThisBO as the last step. I had originally set this up using mutually exclusive rules (so only one would evaluate to true) each ending with VIEW
USING is not available in the Rule Assitant, but does work. I had tried this before posting but got an error so I thought it did not work - now I am assuming I just misentered the text

I have my solution, but here is the screenshot you requested.

aware_support

From the screenshot it seems that the form is still too high...

nlarson

That was kind of the whole point... given the wide variety of screen resolutions 'too high' depends entirely upon variables beyond my control so the only solution is to make a form so short is will never run off the screen. There are still folks using 800x600 out there, and 768 is the most comon vertical resolution. In either size if you subtract the browser frame, some toolbars, a windows task bar and other crap users often have installed and you could be down to 400px or less to work with... so when is it ever truly 'short enough'?

As I said though, I have a solution that works for me so this is not a critical issue but it just seem like best practices would be to open the Pop up panel have a max ieght of say 80-90% of OS resolution, then scroll the form within the panel if necessary (as it does now). Doing so would ensure button never render off the screen.

rocketman

I agree that being able to set the form size as a percentage of available screen real estate would be a BIG plus.

I'm also having some issues with panels that are set to vertical alignment of a similar nature

Column one - fixed width contains a list of help manuals - ok
Column two brings up a tree form with topics and subtropics fixed width - ok
Column three is set to fixed width, the available remaining space for a typical 1200 wide laptop. But when viewed on a PC set to 1024, the third column gets stuffed underneath columns 1 and 2

Sorry to hijack this post - and maybe I'm missing something simple because I know there is a panel column for percentages - but percentage of what? The whole screen? The bit that's left after col 1 and 2 have been allowed for?

I'm trying to avoid getting scroll bars on cols 1 and 2 -aesthetically they don't look nice, but would be happy to see a bottom scroll bar so users could read the html content panel.

rocketman

Er ... please ignore my last post (apart from agreeing with the form bit). Must have been having a bad hair morning. All sorted

nlarson

no worries, if I wasn't bald as a rock I would have them to. :lol: :lol: