Note field doesn’t show contents

[Glen Forister]

I have often noticed that Note Fields sometimes are blank in the Default Layout view and above that the Table View.  I suspect there is information in that field, but not always sure.

In the Defalut View if I click on the field usually nothing happens.
– If I open the Note for editing, it is also black.
– If I click on some other field, usually below it, sometimes the text in the Note Field will appear.
-And, knowing that there is text in that field, I want to edit it, I exit the Note Field and if there is text there I can copy it.  Then by entering the Note Field, I can copy the text into the box and save it.  Even after that if I go to another record and come back that field will sometimes still be blank.  Then I go down to a lower field and click on it and the text will appear.  Then I open the Note Field to edit the text that is showing, but the edit box is empty.  The only way to edit it is to close the Note Field and get the text to appear so I can copy it then open the Note Field which is empty and copy the text that should appear there, edit it and save it and close it.

What is going on?

[Brendan]

I’m wondering if maybe it’s a text colour issue? Could it be the text is white on a white background?

[Glen Forister]

Text color hasn’t been changed and is at the defalut.  I changed it for fun and nothing unexpected happened.  The real problem is I’ve lost confidence in that field.  The above text was describing the behavior of only one record.  Other records exhibit the same behavior sometimes.  I have 64 records of 332 that have that field blank, and I’m sure I had at least some if probably all those records all filled out in that field.  The information isn’t lost, I just have to go to a web site, copy that information, and copy it in the record for it.  That is way more than a couple hours of work and I have no confidence all that work will stick.

I could create a new Note Field and copy the text over to it and see if that helps, but I have other Note Fields in that Form which aren’t showing this problem.

I would copy the form and transfer the data via CSV, but I’ve proved that is a day’s worth of work or more to get the Form back to the way it was since you have no way to do this without rebuilding the new Form from scratch.

If I find a record that is consistent with this behavior, I’ll give it to you for examination, but I don’t think I’ll find that with the behavior I’ve seen.

I guess I have no option except to spend the time and do the work over and fill in the empty Fields and hope for the best that it isn’t a waste of my time.

One funny thing, I have often seen part of this behavior in various Forms ever since I started with TF, that when bringing up a Record with a Note field, often that Note Field is blank until I click on a field near it, usually below it.  But, I’ve never lost data before or had it appear and disappear when trying to edit it.

Any recommendation would be welcome.

[Brendan]

One other thing you could try is enable the Plain Text Note option on your Note field. Tap Forms actually stores two copies of the Note field. One with all the rich text font information, and once as just plain text. Turning on the Plain Text Note field option will expose the other version of the text.

See if that helps.

[Glen Forister]

I always use “Plain Text” on all my Notes.  That prevents the Web page formatting to be pasted and I also have a computer background app “Clear Formatting from clipboard” running.  I’m trying my best to avoid any formatting.  And my “Clip Menue” also is set to paste only text.

This I made an archive of this Form before I started fixing all the problems so I can show them to you.  So far I have identified 2 records that when you look at the archive you should be able to see the behavior working.  I want to identify more before I send the archived form that was made before I made any changes.

[Glen Forister]

I made an archive of this Form before I started fixing all the problems so I can show them to you. So far I have identified 2 records that when you look at the archive you should be able to see the behavior working.

Select Advanced Search = Finished=N
I think you will find the above mentioned behavior discussed previously on the following records.

Coleoptera, Aderidae, aderus
Coleoptera, Bruchidae
Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Anthonomus
Coleoptera, Melandryidae, Abdera
Coleoptera, Phlacridae, 1
Coleoptera, Scirtidae, Deleted

Please let me know what you find.  I can’t guarantee the behavior will be seen on all records.

I wish I could verify this archive, but I can’t do that without replacing the data in my Form.  Maybe I could do that in another Document I think, but not sure.  I stay away from other documents and keep everything in the same document.

That is one thing I would wish for is a way to copy a form with the data in it and the settings like an archive and create another Form with the archive which has all the work done including the scripts, searches, formatting, etc., just with another name but in the same document.  I often want to create a new document similar to one I’m already using, but don’t want to take the hours or days to do all the work and get it running again like the old one but with a slightly new purpose.

[Brendan]

Yes, you can definitely import an archive into another document. Use the New Document command in the File menu to make a new document and then import your .tfarc file into it. Now you can play around with that new document without affecting your original document. That’s one of the benefits of the multiple document feature of Tap Forms 5. The old Tap Forms didn’t have that.

The archive file will contain all the forms, fields, records, images, and so on. So there’s not much to do after you import into another document. It should be mostly all like how you’ve set it up in the original document. There’s only a few things that aren’t in the archive, such as settings in the Preferences / Settings screen, things like window positions, divider widths, and just those general user interface things. All the data is contained in the .tfarc file.

Also, your .tfarc file has people’s emails in it. I’m assuming you don’t want to share that with the world? In cases like this, please email me directly at support@tapforms.com. I’m going to delete your archive file attachment.

You should import the archive into a new document and see if you see that same problem as before.

I don’t know your data, so I don’t know which fields should have data in them and which shouldn’t. You have a few Note fields, but I don’t know which one you’re specifically having troubles with.

 

[Glen Forister]

OK, I’ll email it to you when I can import it into another document and check it.

BTY, you say I can easily make a new Form from an archive, but as I understand it that has to be imported into another Document than the original, and then that Form can’t be moved into the Document where the “mother” Form is because it still identifies itself as the “mother” instead of a new separate Form.  Therefore, I can’t make a copy of a form in one document and create a duplicate that ultimately resides in the same document next to the “mother”.

Thanks.

BTW, you say that emails are retained in the xxx.tfarc.   You mean my personal email address, or email addresses that might be in the database?

[Brendan]

My apologies if I implied you could make a new form from the archive. You MUST import the archive into a new document if you want to mess around with it and NOT affect the original source form. If you import a .tfarc file into the same document from whence it came, you’ll simply update the existing form. It won’t create a new form in the same document.

What I meant by emails are in the .tfarc file is that when I was looking at the Note fields in your form, I saw at a note that was a pasted email that contained someone else’s email address. I just didn’t think they would want their email address to be publicly available to anyone that downloaded your .tfarc file. That’s why I deleted it from the forum.

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