Further to my other thread, is it possible to wrap text in a form? My definition is below. The description is truncated to 52 characters, but the data entry allows longer descriptions. The client wants to be able to see the whole thing. Any ideas?
form
entryitem.product at 2 format 'x(12)'
wcustomerproduct at 15 format 'x(12)'
product.description at 27 format 'x(52)'
w-units at 79
w-prime at 88 skip
With Column 1 Row 1 Overlay width 180 no-box Down no-labels
no-attr-space STREAM-IO use-text frame f-detail.
One trick I use is have the field set as an editor.
product.description at 27 view-as editor size 52 by 1
This can be inconsistent though, and seems to work best if it is the last field in the form. I seem to recall a problem if not the last field in the form and it does not have a value the later fields do not print.
I believe that the output will be wrapped if you add VIEW-AS EDITOR SIZE <columns> BY <rows> to the field you want to wrap.
form
entryitem.product at 2 format 'x(12)'
wcustomerproduct at 15 format 'x(12)'
product.description at 27 format 'x(52)' VIEW-AS EDITOR SIZE 52 by 2
w-units at 79
w-prime at 88 skipSteve beat me to it. I think that the bug he's talking about was fixed in 11.0.
Another option is to check the length of product.description and see if it exceeds 52 characters. If it does, then do a down , then display the rest of the description.
Something along the lines of e.g.
[code]
display stream blah
entryitem.product .... with frame f-detail.
if length(product.description) > 52
then do:
down stream blah with frame f-detail.
display stream blah substring(product.description,53) @ product.description with frame f-detail.
down stream blah with frame f-detail.
end.
[/code]
And if you want to be fancy you could r-index from column 52 to find the first blank and parse the description based on that.
(Sorry James, first post and I haven't figured out how to post code yet).
Thanks for that. Unfortunately we're on 10.2B and it seems that when it wraps then any subsequent fields are missing from that line.
Thanks Larry that's not a bad option although I suspect it means subsequent fields will end up on the wrapped line not the original line which isn't ideal. Still better than not displaying at all though!
Actually it won't do the subsequent fields on the wrapped line. You display all the fields on the initial display, then the second based on length will only display the rest of the description and nothing else. I've had to do this with fields that can span multiple lines using that code (descriptions, comments, etc).
Of course! You sir are an absolute legend!
One of the basic principles of handling issues like this and the footer problem is simply to cut the frame up into smaller frames. E.g., make a separate footer frame and view it when you want (allowing you to decide if it follows the text or appears at the bottom of the page. Or, separate frames for what is above the description, the description, and what follows the description. This allows you to either use an editor widget and resize it to fit or to manually slice the description into lines and use the frame more than once. Crude, but it works.