Universal: let form fields scale into the same amount of columns for each tabpage

Hi Peter,

Thinkwise Platform version 2024.3 has refined the way forms are set up. More info here.

Sections will always scale their fields to the maximum number of columns. 

There are only two scenarios where this doesn’t happen.

1. There aren’t enough fields. When this occurs, the fields will become wider to fill up the section.
2. Two or more of the fields are placed in groups. The maximum number of columns are limited to the number of groups + the number of ungrouped fields.

This is different from how 2024.2 and earlier worked, where placing a field in a new column or placing a field in a new section would inadvertently also cause it to be considered a new group.

I think the ‘Specification’ section suffers from this, as the ERP description should have been placed in a new column. Can you verify that the problems are resolved in 2024.3?

The ‘References’ section will never use 3 columns as there are only 2 fields. Scaling back these columns by adding an empty placeholder column would also scale back the field in the ‘Remarks’ section.

Hi Anne,

Thanks for your response. 2024.3 shows ‘specification’ the same way as in the screenshot. I've included the column settings here, note that the extention_default is hidden with a layout procedure (hidden outside form) and erp_status is an expression field.

But even if ‘specification’ would be shown in 3 columns, it is only a small part of the behaviour that we want to achieve because when there are 1 or 2 normal fields in a section they should still stay the same size as fields in other sections (unless consciously marked to be bigger). We find it really distracting in a form when not all fields are the same width. And also the right side of the form should always align, even if there is only one big field.

Maybe as a compromise solution, would it be possible to let the logic that counts the fields include all fields that are visible in the model (so including fields that are ‘hidden outside form’ in a layout procedure)? That way we could always make sure each section has at least 3 fields when we don't want fields to be bigger. 

@PeterKeeris I’ll respond more thoroughly later, as I like a good discussion on this topic! But for your suggested compromise using Layout: I believe it already works like that when using Hidden inside form.

There is a third scenario that I missed in which a new form column will not appear.

Fields and groups are spread out over the available columns, favoring filling up existing columns.

For this reason, 4 individual fields will never spread out over 3 columns. The favored fill approach is 2-2, not 2-1-1.

Would you favor a 2-1-1 fill or rather a 2-2-0, an empty column, to align the groups? The latter would break the Remarks as this field would fill 1-0-0, so we’d need a new approach for this.

Yes, inside form is included in the logic. However we don't consider that a valid option because adding dummy fields to hide inside form dynamically will be really tedious because you will need to make it respond to the normal fields that are hidden outside form in the layout so it doesn't create unwanted white space (and we want to keep the normal fields to be hidden outside the form to prevent a ‘gatenkaas’ form). 

Definitely 2-1-1.

A change in the field placement algorithm, from whitespace minimized to alignment optimized, would align the ‘Specification’ with other sections that have 3 form columns. As mentioned, it would change the field distribution of four fields from 2-2 to 2-1-1 in a scenario with 3 form columns available.

I’m curious to hear your input on the ‘References’ section. A change to alignment optimized will not affect it as this section only has two fields.

Changing the alignment optimized placement algorithm further to force the maximum number of columns, turning 1-1 into 1-1-0, would resolve this but would also turn the ‘Remarks’ section from 1 to 1-0-0, effectively wasting the available space for this multiline.

I think some sort of field setting would be needed to force a field to utilise the whole width of the form. So that 1-1 will become 1-1-0, 1[utilise_full_width=true] will stay 1 and 1[utilise_full_width=false] will become 1-0-0.

In my opinion it would be fine if the setting would only work for a field to utilise the whole width or not. So it won't be needed to force a 1-1 situation in a case with 3 columns.