Hiding checkbox in conditional formatting

[bobearl]

I'm hoping to improve an interface issue I'm running up against. I've created a portal which shows a checkbox list with a global filter. What I can't seem to do is to make the checkboxes go away completely.

Pardon the dopey sample file, but what it is designed to do is: allow the user to select which colors of fruits are to be described in a given bowl from a checkbox list (global value) -> choose what size of fruit we want to describe first -> choose the color of that fruit -> choose one or more fruits that fit the description.

If there are no fruits that fit the description, I get the response. With conditional formatting, I am able to make a condition that if the value list is not valid, set the text color to the background color. However, unless the color is black, I can't hide the first checkbox because it seems it is always black. Pardon the poor description; the attached image file makes it more clear.

I've seen other people avoiding checkboxes altogether using repetitions, scripts, and buttons. I'm a novice and this seems quite involved, but I can go that route if there's no simpler way, but as this seems like a fairly small item, I wanted to ask for other suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Bob

Screen_shot_2009-10-26_at_2.05.08_PM.pdf

BowlFruit8.fp7.zip

[Fitch]

The trick is to click More Options... in the Conditional Formatting dialog, and set the font very large so that it is pushed outside the boundaries of the text box. This just barely works for your file, because it's a multi-line field, and the max font size you can specify is 500.

[bobearl]

Brilliant! Thanks for the suggestion! I don't think I would have ever thought of that.