Table Margins on Subforms

HCL Domino Domino Forum
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For anyone else that comes across this problem: there is a bug in Notes which means if you create tables on a subform and set left and/or right margins in the Table properties (i.e not the paragraph properties), those margins will NOT be honoured when you place your subform onto a form.

I just spent about 2 hours creating a subform containing a fairly complex table with lots of fields and hide-whens, only to find out now that I cannot use it because when I place it on a form, the table margins which were set to make it line up with everything else on the form get ignored and it looks rubbish. This now means that I have to paste my big table with all of it’s fields and set the margins on each and every form I want to use.

Looking on IBM’s support pages, i could only find this:

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=463&context=SSKTMJ&context=SSKTWP&q1=table+margin+subform&uid=swg1LO08858&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&lang=en

which states that “This problem was resolved as: No Plans To Fix in this Codestream” for version 6.5.4. I’ve just tried it in 7.0.2 and it hasn’t been fixed there either.

This is so frustrating as a developer. You want to create professional, robust applications using good development techniques to really show Note & Domino off to it’s full advantage but then Notes throws these little spanners in the works and it causes you to have to do things the way you might have done them when you first started developing and didn’t know better. Sure, I can paste my 80 odd fields onto each form, but what happens when I want to make some change to the way this set of fields works? I have to make that same change on each and every form. The entire point of subforms is that you don’t have to do this kind of thing, but I just can’t see any way round it. I’ve got no control over the formatting or layout of the main forms, so if I can’t make my subform match then I have to do it the long way.

I just can’t help feeling like it’s things like this which cause Notes & Domino not to stand up as well as it should against it’s competitors, which is a shame. Don’t get me wrong, i’m definitely not one of the anti-Lotus people, i’m quite the opposite, but this is definitely the kind of thing which crops up on those ‘notes sucks’ sites, and I just can’t think of any defense for it.

Thankfully, all this typing has warmed up my CTRL+C, CTRL+V fingers, so i’m off to do some copy-pasting.

Emily.

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Subject: Table Margins on Subforms

aggravating indeed, I agree

try this : on your form, create a table with one row/column, set your margins as desired and probably set the borders to ‘0 pixel’ as well.

‘stick’ your subform(s), with the complex table(s), into that main form single row/column table along with whatever else ( fields, static text, etc ) you need for your design

overall - as I recall, have not tried it just now to be sure - the result should be that all the subforms retain the alignment that you’re looking for

if this is not so - please don’t deride me too badly :slight_smile:

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Subject: RE: Table Margins on Subforms

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the response. I’m all done copying and pasting now, but the next time I run into this ‘feature’ I’ll give your idea a go and post back with how I get on. I promise I won’t shout if it doesn’t work!

Emily.