B-a-s-i-c sliding questions

[Mandu]

I'm attaching a screen shot of a record in browse mode. I'm having a terrible time getting things to slide properly when I preview/print it. I hope it's somewhat obvious how I want it to look:

The line items should shrink upwards. They do.

Everything below the line items should slide up, maintaining their positions relative to one another. I'm referring to the two column-totals (3) and the Subtotal, and everything beneath it. The Print Date is in the footer and should stay put.

The stuff on the right in the gray sidepanel should not print. The entire gray area, as well as the black vertical bounding line on its left-most extremity, is located outside of the "page boundary" denoted by the dotted vertical line on a layout.

The button labeled "Default S&H" in the main body is nonprinting.

Right now everything below the line items is moving crazily and independently. I figure I must be missing the obvious. Some questions:

-- "Also reduce the size of the enclosing part" By 'part', they mean Header/Footer/Body and nothing else, correct?

-- Items outside the page boundary still affect sliding and should be defined as nonprinting (in this case), correct?

-- Arrange>Group does *not* make a group of objects behave as one object which can be slid while maintaining the relative positions of its constituent parts, does it? (If so, how?)

-- Is there anything magic about boxes with invisible edges? E.g. Comments and Shiipping Instrux are fields with no borders.

-- I think I understand the "directly above" vs. "all above" distinction.

Thanks loads for anyone taking the time to help me with this!

Chap

[Jeff Bills]

Chap,

I'd make sure you're set to SLIDING ALL ABOVE

Attached is a file where field TEST is not sliding. Field A is sliding all above. Field B is sliding all above. Field C is sliding DIRECTLY above.

Note that until field TEST is sliding, fields B and C don't move.

Set field TEST to sliding (I chose ALL ABOVE). Since B is set to SLIDING ALL ABOVE it will only meet the bottom of TEST. Set B to SLIDING DIRECTLY ABOVE and it, as well as field C, will come under field A and alongside TEST

Another option is to take the black line at the bottom and move it straight up under fields TEST and A, between A and B. Set the line to slide and it moves up with everything else but notice that fields B and C are still under the line in their original state, although sliding up.

You might try making a similar line across your printable page between your line items and the two column subtotals (3) and the Subtotal, and then, align the tops of the subtotals to THAT line. Set THAT line to SLIDING ALL ABOVE and color it white or transparent so it's not seen

Probably overkill, but it may help

[Matthew F]

Grouped objects don't always slide together in Preview mode. See the comment by BobWeaver to my question on this previously:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...&PHPSESSID=

[Mandu]

Thanks . . .

One thing that was confusing was that a layout field with an empty value would disappear and cease to be a slide "ceiling" of those below it.

I eventually got control over it by taking the following approach:

-- Never use Sliding based on All Above. Too easy to have, or to add later, something on the far side of the page that mysteriously arrests the travel of an unrelated object elsewhere.

-- Use a white or transparent (or 0-width) sliding line instead. This gives everything that Slide All Above does, but with the ability to limit the horizontal extent of the ceiling.

By the way, when you have View>Show>Sliding Objects turned on, is there any visual indication of whether an object is Slide-directly-above vs. Slide-All?

[Jeff Bills]

I haven't seen any indicator differentiating between sliding up based on all or directly above

I've also never noticed that one could create a "zero" width line before . . . I always thought "None" wouldn't create a line!