The Separation Model – Part 5
There are a lot of reasons to love using web viewers for the purpose of data display. Your data can be presented in a more compact fashion. You can style data in such a way that it looks like it's part of FileMaker. You can add in functionality easily, which may be more difficult using plugins - such as the ability to initiate a VOIP phone call right within the web viewer. Quite simply, a web viewer is always updating and being refreshed - and offers one of the most flexible ways to present data.
The scary part, which really (and I mean REALLY) shouldn't scare you at all, is HTML. If you're creating anything in FileMaker then you simply can't be ignorant about HTML/CSS. Beyond HTML, if you really want to harness some of the true power of a web viewer, then you learn a bit of Javascript and discover all the magic you can do with power tools like jQuery.
In part 5 of this series, I showcase how I use the web viewer to present the data being collected in the Attributes table. I show you how I extract the data and discuss why it's so flexible. While the effort to display in a web viewer may be a bit beyond simply adding a field to a layout, the presentation options is what makes it so appealing. Data displayed within a web viewer can optionally be shown based on access and hiding it is much easier than hiding a field on a FileMaker layout (which can't even be done unless using some sort of portal trick).
Comments
Web viewer exceeding bounding box
Matt,
I love this technique, but have run into one problem. I have a pair of web viewers near the top of my layout, above a tab control. Three out of the last 6 days, when I go into display mode, the height of the web viewer is around an inch more than defined, exceeding the defined bounds on the bottom. This means it overlaps with the tab control, as well as cosmetic display elements that define the two areas. I've ensure that I didn't somehow mis-define the box, even going so far as to delete it and re-define it. I've made sure it's placed behind the cosmetic elements defining the boundaries of the area in which it's placed, as well as behind the tab control. This has happened on two different machines, both using 11.0v3, but never on both machines on the same day (very weird, no?).
I posted a message on FMForums, but haven't had any helpful comments. (http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/78867-webviewer-exceeding-bounding-box/page__gopid__368395#entry368395).
I'm mystified - I can't figure out any reason this would be happening, which is maddening. Could it be that this is normal behavior - the web viewer expands vertically as it sees fit (doesn't seem to relate to the content displayed, as it's the same whether there's anything in the viewer or not). Any suggestions or explanation would be very welcome!
Follow-up: even weirder, further testing revealed that it IS related to the content. Showing the border revealed that the web viewer bounds were exactly where I'd placed them; the internal white space (content) was overlapping the border of the viewer! Copying the web address definition and pasting into a new web viewer resulted in the same problem. Pasting into a text editor and then copying and pasting back into a new web viewer solved the problem.
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Matthew Miller
experientia docet