NAB - Form and Button Options (and Misc Text)

[opendave]

I have an app that uses the Filter button, so that creates the toolbar at the top of my grid. I have paging enabled, so that creates a bar at the bottom. I need to display text showing the last time the data was rebuilt, so I created a form with that field (and a separate data source), so that is another section at the bottom of the page. And I need buttons to Refresh the data or Close the form, so that creates a toolbar-like area in the form.

All told, I have 4 mostly empty horizontal bars in the app. That takes up quite a bit of space.

In an ideal world, It would be great to be able to add buttons and labels to the paging toolbar. I could have easily fit my timestamp and refresh buttons there.

Working through this app gave me a handful of ideas:
- Ability to post text/label on the paging toolbar if it is there. Data-bound would be nice too.
- Ability to put the Filter button on the paging toolbar too, and maybe other buttons?
- Form layouts seem pretty limited right now. One small text field and two buttons take up a lot of space because the buttons go on a bar below the form instead of being part of the form layout. Of course, with the ability to add text to one of the other bars, this becomes less of an issue.
- If you do have a form panel at the bottom of the page, the X for deleting a widget overlaps the save icon and can really irritate you when you are not careful enough to make sure the save button is the one with focus. Maybe a confirmation before removing a widget or section?

Sorry for the long post! I will add a snip to show the abundance of extra space created by all of these toolbars...

Thanks and Happy New Year!
David

[sean.lanktree]

Thanks for all of the suggestions David!

In the meantime, maybe (or maybe not) a couple of tweaks can help you save some space.

- Remove the form panel entirely.

- Link your grid's title to an app variable. Specify an app startup program (based off of EXNABSTART) to set the app variable (SetAppVar('myGridTitle','Attached Files (last updated XXXXXXXXXX)');

- Add refresh button to grid (previously on the form). Upon refresh clicked, call RPG program (based off of EXNABBTN). This will update the the same app variable again and then return back success of true. Upon success of true, reload the widget data (through Behaviors).

- The close panel button that was in the form could be replaced by setting the widget to "Closable" within NAB.

[opendave]

Thanks Sean... Getting rid of the form will be a great improvement.

I had not seen the Startup Program (in Security) before, so that is a good-to-know.

I am not seeing an option or details on how to link Grid Title to an App Variable. How is that done?

[sean.lanktree]

Hi David -

First, you will need to create a new app variable. Click the app variables button which is next to the security button in NAB.

Next, click the settings icon (top left when hovered) on your grid widget. You should see a "Link To App Variables" button appear with the left hand side form. Click this and you will be able to link your app variable to the "title" property of your grid.

[opendave]

Got it! I was looking in the Grid widget setup, not in the App/Grid Widget setup. Thanks!