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Field alignment logic

What is the logic behind "bottom field alignment"?

 

Have experimented with spaces etc. - no luck so far - is there a way to "top-align" fields?

 

J:)

Screenshot 2022-01-17 at 13.20.25

12 replies

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    • Mel_Charles
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    John - there is no logix ninox seems to have adopted this method for the grid layout. Seems backwarsd to me. Ther sis no way to later this or used the aviable spance next to a lrger text blockScreenshot 2022-01-17 at 12.39.22

    I would also like to use the wasted space next to the large text box on my image etc to stack other data fields.. but alas not to be...

    its the same with an image date field - add one and it auto goes to the very left of the form ?

    • Mel_Charles
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Jeeez - either my keyboard is failing or I need better glasses! - appologies about the crap mispelling!

    Really do need an edit function on this form!. When i type on this forum the edit box is only a very small font (about 6pt)

    is this the same for everyone?

    • KAXIG ApS
    • John.1
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Ik now 😂

    • Sean
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I guess Mel has a short memory 😉 https://ninox.com/en/forum/technical-help-5ab8fe445fe2b42b7dd39ee7/why-cant-i-move-these-formula-fields-613eaf8f9713ee0e863dd0fc?post=61403408231c277d7aa5304c&page=1

     

    If you want to make sense of the layout all you have to do is think in terms of HTML/CSS

    • Mel_Charles
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Sean - the older I get and the more I learn, the more I realise the less I know! :-). Consider my memory jogged! :-)

    Hmmm - It hard to always advise. Yes I do remember (now!) trouble is you do something once and move on... 
    I think the fundament question allured to what you can do within Ninox (well thats my excuse!).

    John I stand corrected - Yes you can do something but it involves some black magic ! :-)

    In short you can something but it relies on a some CSS manipulation (err Hack). Not really my strongpoint at all.

    • Mel_Charles
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Sean. Just looked back over my system and found I had not used your CSS hack in my live database but only in my play/development copy.

    However I have now! so thank you agina (Twice in one day!!!)

    However, as far as I can see that is really only addresses part of John's question/my statement - insofar as it deals with the image positioning but not a line of fields where one field is a memo tppe/large field and they are all aligned at the foot. But of course I know you will already have answer for this 😂

    cheers Mel

    • KAXIG ApS
    • John.1
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I read the threads Sean - and thanks for the insight - but I still find the problem to be partly unsolved - I still can't top-align fields (as far as I understand). 

    Now, don't get me wrong, I really dig Ninox a lot - but one thing I miss from my days as a Filemaker user is the flexibility when designing form layouts.

    In the best of worlds I would love to have the database-machine made by Ninox and the user-layout-design-tools made by Filemaker - or perhaps the Ninox devs could just "steal" some ideas from Filemaker?

     

    Anyway: design-freedom to the people!!! the time of strictly dictated rows and columns are long gone 😉

     

    J-)

    • Mel_Charles
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    John

    I know how you feel about this, I came to Ninox after some 25 years of using Dataease - whereby like Filermaker/Access etc you have much more control of the table/form elements etc.

    I think where ninox scores is in that basically it is a system in a tin. You open the box and all you have to do is set out out your table/forms together with or without scripting. This is both liberating and frustrating at the same time. Controls like email fields just work (can't tell you how bad this was to implement in dataease!) but the downside is that Ninox fix (lock) some things in place as they want it to work across a tablets/mobiles etc and by doing so they have standardised a lot of the form design elements.

    Here's the thing, I built my production system in Dataease many years ago and it took me some 2 years to getting it a point wher I considered fully done. But I could never get emailing etc to work properly and all scripting was procedural and was full of holes! the scripting language called DQL (an offset of SQL) was appalling!. I shudder to think how I would have got data over to my mobile phone! I then looked File Maker which I liked but the min was a 5 user licence and at that time I did not need that many... MS Access was a pain in the arse! and the journey to have it in the cloud etc looked horrendous.

    Then I discovered Ninox! and did the whole project (and a lot more!) with a few months!

    It's not perfect. Yep - I would like a bit more control over some form/field attributes (like setting colour on a data field for one!) and would like a better forum layout where you can set a subject as a sticky - so new users don't have to ask the same old questions over and over and we struggle to find where they have been answered before!. 

    I used to moan (lightly!) about this to my misses (as you do!)- her response was "get over it" work with what you have!

    Fundamentally my job is to run my business - thus I need the a tool that gives me results but is not onerous to develop or use. Nixon does a good job of that.

    I guess we can't all have our cake and eat it (or can we....?).

    • Sean
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi John & Mel,

    Here's the alignment solution...

     

    html("
    <style>
    .form .component {vertical-align: top;}
    </style>
    ")

     

    Here's the part where I would love to have sticky threads as Mel mentioned. I have explained how to do it many times. So here goes, you put the code in a Formula field. The Formula field can't be hidden with "Display field only, if:" set to null. You have to set the "Label position" to "Hidden" and in "Style" set the "Background color" to match your form background color.

     

    The Ninox apps are Progressive Web Apps and the UI/UX can be modified using HTML/CSS/JavaScript in a Formula field. It's great that Ninox allows this functionality, but not everyone is comfortable making modifications like that and that functionality is limited to each Form. It would be more effective in "Trigger after open" or some other initialization action. Hope this helps.

    • KAXIG ApS
    • John.1
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Sean - now I got it- and it works perfectly.

    I'm building my own Ninox-manual as I go along in Notion (since Ninox seems to change code snippets) - and many times I've wondered why all the "gold" of this forum isn't being gathered to, and published in, the documentation....

    Anyway - thanks a lot 🙏

    Mel - it seems we've been walking the same path - and have come to the same conclusion,,, functionality first, and Ninox is the winner!!! Of course being a german product one would expect it to work - that's what they do down there!😉  But if you compare Ninox to another german product, the BMW, I don't think that they would have come very far, just having an excellent engine - after all looks matters. So why stop at the perfect engine? - a "sexy" UI will open sooo many doors, if you ask me... 😊  

    • zenmom
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    Sean, thank you for posting the html alignment solution snippet. I can read enough html to follow what's going on, and think I understand  how to alter if I want a different alignment.

    However, I'm not a programmer, and I need just a little more instruction.

    So, you put this bit of html in a formula field. Does that alter the alignment for every field in the table? I can't see how that would work.

    Or do you reference the formula field from every other field that you wish to use that alignment?

    In which case, would every field where you specify the alignment then have to *also* be a formula field, which refs the formula field that contains the code that sets the alignment, and then also refs *another* field that provides whatever data you wish to display? (date, or the result from multiple choice input, or some text?)

    Thanks in advance for your help with this. I think once I understand implementation, my forms will look *much* better!

    Marcia Morrison
    in Salem, Massachusetts

Content aside

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