FIX: Form Wizard Ignores Design Area Limitation

ID: Q163784

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0a

SYMPTOMS

When using the Form Wizard to design a form for a table that contains a particular mixture of fields of different data types and lengths, the Form Wizard may ignore the limits of the design area, producing a form that does not show the last few fields or the navigation buttons at the bottom of the form.

When the design area is 640x480 pixels and the horizontal and vertical spacing are both 12 pixels, the form will display 17 rows of fields and labels, but any additional fields, up to enough for 22 rows, will not be visible in the design area.

In other cases, the Form Wizard will issue a message that there are too many fields and that there are three alternative workarounds. The "Add Pages" alternative is already checked, but is ignored by the Wizard.

There are two alternative, incorrect results. One shows the same 17 rows of fields and labels, but will not show the additional fields or navigation buttons.

The resulting page of the other alternative shows 10 fields and the navigation buttons. This usually occurs when the fields have captions.

NOTE: Not all installations of Visual FoxPro 5.0 will exhibit any form of this behavior. Multiple tests made on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 exposed the problem but other tests on similarly loaded systems did not.

RESOLUTION

In either of the above cases, the simplest workaround is to add several dummy fields to the table structure. The number will vary depending on the particular table and may run as high as 22 additional fields. After the form is designed, those fields may be deleted from the pages that hold them. In some cases, the extra fields can even be deleted from the table structure, and the Form Wizard will operate correctly.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This has been corrected in Visual FoxPro 6.0.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Create a database named "Pages.dbc."

2. To the .dbc, add a table named "Pages.dbf" that contains 18

   ten-character fields named field1, field2, field3, etc.

   design area on the "Form" page to 640x480 pixels, and both horizontal
   and vertical spacing to 12 pixels. Choose "Set As Default."

5. From the Tools menu, select Wizards, and then select Form.

6. In the Wizard Selection dialog box, select the default, Form Wizard, and

   click OK.

8. Choose "Finish."

9. In step 4, note that the "Add Pages" checkbox is checked. Select the

   "Save form and modify it in the Form Designer" option, and then choose
   "Finish."

   showing, but the property box will list label and text for field 18
   and the BUTTONS1 command button group.

   command:

      MODIFY DATABASE Pages.dbc

   Within the database designer, modify the Pages.dbf table. On the
   first 18 fields, add captions, specifically "Long Caption n"
   (without the quotes), where "n" is the field number. Add 12 more
   ten-character fields named field23, field24, etc.

13. Build a new form with the Form Wizard, using all the fields of

   Pages.dbf. Save and open the form in the form designer for
   modification. Accept the default check in the "Add Pages" checkbox.

   The Form Wizard will proceed until it stops with a dialog box advising
   that you have too many fields and suggests the following options:

     - Click the Add Pages Checkbox
     - Remove some of your selected fields
     - Increase the maximum design area setting in the options dialog

   When you click OK, the Form Wizard will finish.

15. Add 8 more fields with the same characteristics and build a new form.

16. Observe the form.

17. Add 4 more fields with the same characteristics and build a new form.

18. Observe the form.

19. Modify the table by removing the last 4 rows, then build a new form.

20. The new form should show pages even though the form you built in

   step 15 did not show pages.

Keywords          : kbtool kbVFp kbVFp500abug kbVFp500bug FxprgTable FxtoolFormdes FxtoolWizscreen kbbuglist
Version           : 5.0a 5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbbug