Dynamic Layouts?

[Aelfin]

I am trying to generate a Dynamic layout based on the data people have entered, the layout is a report where sections will be added or removed based on what info they entered. I can parse the data fine I was wondering if anyone knew a good way to add or remove fields from a layout?

[bcooney]

Instead of adding and removing fields, put all the fields that you might need, and use the Slide Objects setting to remove any whitespace.

[Aelfin]

Thanks for the comment.

I looked into sliding Objects but it isn't the perfect solution for my particular plan. The report generated isn't 100% complete and ready for printing the fields are open for data entry specific to that record. If I do the sliding objects then the fields that are empty still appear on the layout and people could get confused when entering the last 10-20% needed to complete the report.

I can make people enter that info during the original data entry but it would make the process of data entry very clunky. I would have to load all the pre-fab'd msg's that might or might not need to be altered for a very wide range of topics and of which there can be as much as 100 per report.

But it is certainly better than i had before if anyone else has a idea please post it and i'll give it a whirl.

[bcooney]

If I do the sliding objects then the fields that are empty still appear on the layout...

What does this mean? Which layout? The report layout, the data entry layout? You have two distinct layouts, correct?

I'm really not following your needs here. I'm thinking that you want to customize the data entry screen, so that what has been already entered is no longer on the data entry layout. Is that the case?

I thought that you wanted to print a report (different layout from any data entry) that may or may not have values for all of the fields entered. Another tip that might help, is that you can have the field labels that you may wish to include on the report as calc fields that only evaluate if their corresponding field is not empty:

Field1Label = If (not isempty (Field1), LabelText, "")

Using "smart" field labels will allow the entire section to disappear on the report if they are empty.