Dialogbox within a dialogbox

We have an application that we have been using since Notes 5. From within a document, the user opens a dialogbox and then has the option to click on a button and open another dialogbox to refer back to certain elements of the underlying document. This functionality has worked up until version 8. Begininning with version 8, the second dialogbox just displays a blank window.

IBM acknowledges that this is a problem, but we are told that the problem has not made the fix list because no other customers have complained about it. It is still not fixed in version 8.5. This is a significant function for us, so the problem leaves us stuck at version 7.

Has anyone else experienced this problem and/or developed a workaround?

Subject: need more information

You mentioned that IBM acknowledges that this is a problem; do you know if a bug been entered on this? I have never heard of such a problem before. It seems pretty serious.

How is the second dialog box created? A form/subform? How is it displayed (Lotusscript or @function)? Any additional info. you can provide about your application would help a lot.

Thanks.

Subject: Additional info

With a document open, an action in the action bar uses @Dialogbox to call a form. On that form is an action button that uses @Dialogbox to call a second form.

When one of our first Notes 8 users identified the problem, I tried changing the code to Lotusscript and using the dialogbox method of notesuiworkspace, but the result was the same: a blank window.

I don’t know if a bug has been entered (or even how that happens). I can tell you that I’ve been in touch off and on with someone at IBM since October about this.

Subject: database

Hi Eric,

Would it be possible for you to attach a design-only copy of your database (either in this forum or on a web page that I can access)? I would like to see if I can figure out what is going on here. I can’t promise anything, but at least it will be another set of eyes on your database.

  • If the dialog requires supporting look-up document(s) for the fields to populate, please paste a minimum # of documents into the database

  • Please make sure the copy is not encrypted

  • In either the About or Using doc, please include exact steps to reproduce your problem

At the very least, I can write up a bug on this, if in fact it is a bug in Notes.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Dialogbox within a dialogbox

Hello Debbie:

The SPR # OAGU7P7LEV contains the database, and steps to reproduce the issue.

Thank you very much.

Subject: thanks!

Subject: possible fix

Hi Eric,

Obinna from Support kindly supplied the SPR number, from which I was able to take a look at your database. I am a little confused, however. Your original problem as posted in this forum said that the second dialog box was blank. In the SPR that Obinna referenced, the problem is described as follows: “@DialogBox cannot be used in this context; a document must be selected” Error occurs"

I have a fix for you which will get rid of the error and will display the form. However, a Lotusscript error occurs before the form displays (possibly from the QueryOpen event of the form used in the dialog?), which you will need to debug.

Add the parameter in red to the formula.

@DialogBox(“Print Summary v.2”;[AutoHorzFit]:[AutoVertFit]:[NoCancel]:[ReadOnly] : [NoNote])

I also tried rewriting the button in Lotusscript, which also prevents the error from occurring. Here is the Lotusscript code in case it helps you:

Sub Click(Source As Button)

Dim uiwork As New notesuiworkspace

Set note = uiwork.currentdocument.Document

Call uiwork.dialogbox(“Print Summary v.2”, True, True, True, True, True, True, “title”, note, True)

End Sub

The lotusscript gives me other issues since I can’t access your server, but when I ctrl-break out of the endless hourglass, the dialog displays.

Subject: Progress

Thank you, Debbie.

I have seen the error you refer to, but more often than not, what I’ve seen is a blank form. When I say blank, what I really mean is a form that displays the captions but no data. Adding the [NoNote] parameter would not help because the Designer 8 help says that if this parameter is used, “If a current document exists, it will be ignored.” This is exactly what we do not want to happen, but it appears to be what is happening.

However, you referred to a Lotusscript error in the queryopen or postopen event of the first form. The first form contained Call source.GoToBottom in the postopen event. It’s been there for years, and I no longer remember why. Anyway, I took that out, reinstalled Notes 8 on a machine, and the button on the first form did display correctly in Notes 8. That’s progress.

Elsewhere, there is a button that calls forth a series of 4 dialog boxes in sequence. There are 5 forms that can display in these windows, and I’ll call them forms A-E. Each of these forms has a button to display the underlying form, and they can display in the order A-B-C-E or A-B-D-E. I have discovered that the dialogbox button on the forms works on forms A-D, but on form E, it displays a blank form (captions only, no data). None of these forms has any action in any form event. I can’t see anything that makes form E different from the previous four.

I should reiterate that the database that we are discussing works perfectly in versions 5 and 7.

Eric

Subject: No progress in reality

When I thought I had made progress in my last post, that was actually due to an aberration in which a form randomly works for a short while. In reality, there was no progress.

However, I have now identified the source of the problem. We have several of these forms that are displayed in a dialog box and contain a button that uses @dialogbox to display the underlying form in another window. The only forms that do not work are the ones that contain an embedded view. Clicking on the button in these forms in Notes 8 displays a blank form (captions but no data). If I remove the embedded view, the button works in Notes 8. When I put the view back, the button stops working. (And, of course, these forms have no problem in Notes 5 and Notes 7.)