Active buttons in preview mode?

[ctz243]

I have an application in which I'd like to hide the status area, using my own on-screen buttons for all user interaction.

The problem is that this application has a report in which each record prints to more than one page - and I'd like the users to be able to preview this, and navigate from record to record and page to page, *without* needing access to the 'status' area.

It seems like in preview mode it is impossible to have any active buttons. Scrolling the scroll bar moves between records, and not between pages; I have to click on the little page icons in the status bar to do this. Likewise the 'continue' button is necessary and that is in the status bar. (OK, I know the user can just press 'enter' but that is not intuitively obvious!

Is the only option to force a print and save the print setup as 'print preview' or 'save to PDF'?

Any other ideas? - thanks!

[Michael Myett]

Here is an old sample file I put together that should help. It is ver 6, but should convert to 7 well enough.

print_preview.zip

[ctz243]

Hi - and thanks!

Works well. Clever! A lot of thought gone into it. Thanks *very* much for the attached file!

Before you sent me that I contrived a button in FM7 with a saved print script step that results in a 'print preview' output when clicked. The PDF opens in OSX's 'Preview' app soon after pressing the button and looks great. Doubt this approach would be OK in Windows but on OSX it's an excellent solution - particularly as the inbuilt FM7 preview is not antialiased and has the bad jaggies at small font sizes.

Thanks a lot - chris.

[DanBrill]

In windows shift-page up and shift-page down will scroll through pages in preview mode. Don't know if this works on Mac.

[ESpringer]

Control-up and control-down (just as in flipping through records in browse mode) works on Mac to move among pages in Preview mode. As far as I know, there isn't a way to switch specifically among records. (If you have multi-page records, there's no way in preview mode to skip exactly to the start of record 2.)

[bruceR]

"Any other ideas?"

Yes. Since you're usiing FM7, look at Ray Cologon's Preview Palette. It puts up a second small window that acts as a palette, allowing you to select pages, go back and forth, select printers, print, etc. http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demos7/demo704.html