In the ND6… Discussion Template, the All Documents View has an interesting column: Topic. This column will show subject of the main document in a thread with bold text and any responses have a plain text.
Does anyone know how Notes is accomplishing this? I have looked at every property, comparing and contrasting and have even copied and pasted the column into another database where it failed to display the same way.
There are also, as near as I can tell, no color columns associated with view.
Subject: text color in columns with responses
It’s simpler than you might think, and I believe this technique has been around since at least Notes 3.
Look at the untitled column to the left of the Topic. It has a pretty similar column formula to Topic, but has the “Show Responses Only” column property checked. Both columns are set to “show twisty when row is expandable”.
Once you realise there are two columns, it’s not hard to work out how main docs can be bold and responses plain.
So if a doc is a response, it displays text in the untitled column, and if it’s a main doc it displays in the Topic column. Notes just knows that you don’t want to see both columns for each document (because the first has “Show Responses Only” turned on, and the view is set to “Show response documents in a hierarchy”).
Give it a try!
Rupert Clayton
UK
Subject: RE: text color in columns with responses
Thanks Rupert, I am reversing the process and doing this again. Turns out I’ve done this some time ago - so I guess I’m just having a moment.
It’s better to burn out, than to fade away…
Subject: text color in columns with responses
There are actually two columns at work there – one that displays the Topic from main documents, and a responses-only column (it will be one-wide and not resizable, which accounts for the fact that you can’t see the separator between it and the column to its right).
Subject: text color in columns with responses
I just created a brand-new discussion database from the R6 template, and if you click on the Topic column, open the properties, and go to the Font tab (third from left), you will see that the text is set to that aqua color, Default Sans Serif, 9 point Bold. The next column to the left of Topic is set to display responses only, and is set to gray Default Sans Serif, 9 point plain (as are all the other columns.) I’m not sure why you’re not seeing those; the only thing I can think of is you’re looking at the Title tab in the properties (which alters the properties of the column headers; in this view they are all the same) rather than the font tab, which controls the actual column content’s fonts.
Subject: RE: text color in columns with responses
More likely just an unfamiliarity with responses-only column concept – Jon’s relatively new to the platform.
Subject: RE: text color in columns with responses
Thanks Stan, Esther - for locating that for me.
Actually, I had reverse engineered this a long time ago (circa R4 - that view hasn’t really changed all that much since then.) But I haven’t looked at it again since and so I just happened to open it up again and couldn’t figure it out.
I appreciate your rapid responses.