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==== Disappearing MDI Menu Items/Contrls (OpenInsight Specific) ====
=== At 16 DEC 2001 01:01:46AM kc wrote: ===
{{tag>"OpenInsight Specific"}}
My MDI Menu items has all disappeared during development.
After recreating from scratch, it disappears again even with only one item as I do more menus and test runs. There is no consistent prediction as to when it will happen but it does. Also, I have some edit box controls in the MDI that I cannot access in form designer but will appear when the form is run. It was accessible initially when created but together with the Menu items, these controls are now "Lost in Space".
Any advice or similiar experience would be of great help.
Thanks
KC
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=== At 16 DEC 2001 08:34PM Robert Lee wrote: ===
If you do a search here, you will find some posts on the subject of disappearing menu items. It is not related to whether or not it is an MDI frame, but may have something to do with the number of menu items but not necessarily and the length of the Menu ID names. How many menu items do you have? Can you shorten the Menu ID names to a minimum. My advice is to recreate the form in question from scratch using abbrieviated Menu IDs.
Robert Lee
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=== At 17 DEC 2001 03:28AM Richard Hunt wrote: ===
I know what you mean. It has happened to me too. When I am developing a form, I keep a backup of the form by "saving as" test. That way when it does happen, I have a backup of the form.
I have many forms, and all of them have the same menus. I really dont think it has to do with menus alone. I think, somehow, the "source code" of the form gets corrupted in some way. I'm not even sure how.
When it happens to me, I just delete the whole form and all that is associated with it. Then I recover the form from my backup "test" form. It seems to make the annoying problem go away.
It seems to happen to me at about a ratio of 1 in 50. Not often, and yet just often enough to want ta throw the computer out the window.
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=== At 17 DEC 2001 05:13AM Colin Rule wrote: ===
Agreed.
I have had the same experience on a number of occasions.
In my case, I included long help text to display in the status line.
This can cause the size to be larger than allowed.
If you are using menu help, I would recommend storing a code in the help and using a CHANGED event in the status line to lookup the code and display the appropriate text.
If nothing else it allows for better control of the text to display as you can then exceed the maximum allowed, allow for different languages or users own terminology at the same time, annd store it away from the menu.
Colin
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=== At 17 DEC 2001 08:28AM kc wrote: ===
I have found that neither the number of items nor the item menu name length matters. I still disappeared on one menu item.
Can anyone in RTI throw some light as to the cause of this behaviour ?
KC
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=== At 17 DEC 2001 08:58AM Oystein Reigem wrote: ===
KC,
Some of us foreigners have the habit of fouling up things with end-of-character-set foreign characters. But I trust you're a straight A-Z guy.
Have you ever edited your forms outside Form Designer - e.g edited SYSREPOSWINS rows in System Editor? That's one source of errors.
On the subject of SYSREPOSWINS rows and System Editor: Have you tried to study the SYSREPOSWINS and SYSREPOSWINEXES rows of your forms with System Editor to see if everything looks normal, or at least to compare working windows with non-working?
- Oystein -
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=== At 17 DEC 2001 03:11PM Robert Lee wrote: ===
KC
Can you clarify whether it is all the menu items in the Form Source OR the menu items at runtime that are disappearing (especially after you choose a menu option). If it is happening at runtime, it may be due to returning a value into @SELF in the quick event of the menu item.
Robert Lee
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=== At 17 DEC 2001 04:50PM James Birnie wrote: ===
As Oystein said, I have seen window corruption before where controls "disappear" when a form is compiled - this was a couple of years ago, but when examining the row in SYSREPOSWINS there where some non-standard characters fowling up the array.
It was rare and for me only occurred where a style sheet was used on a non-table bound form - and the corruption would only occur after time, not just on the first compilation... so now all my forms are started as table bound. This has the other advantage of pulling all my "default" menu controls from the "DEFOITEMPLATE" window.
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=== At 18 DEC 2001 07:16AM kc wrote: ===
Robert,
All the menu items just disappeared in the form source and this was in the OI developer.
I guess I will have to keep a backup at every save so that I can recover from this occurence.
KC
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=== At 18 DEC 2001 08:43AM Oystein Reigem wrote: ===
KC
[i]All the menu items just disappeared in the form source and this was in the OI developer.[/i]
When Robert said "runtime" he meant "at runtime", in contrast to "at design time". But I assume what you say is they disappear at design time - while in Form Designer. You sit there working peacefully in Form Designer's Menu Designer, building up your menus, save your menus, save your form, and then suddenly they are all gone. Or?
What if there is some evil lurking [i]elsewhere[/i] in your form? What happens if you take a spanking new window and build your menus there instead? With all the menu building practice you've got now it shouldn't take too long. :-) (Sorry.)
[i]I guess I will have to keep a backup at every save so that I can recover from this occurence.[/i]
No, you must get to the root of this. :-)
- Oystein -
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=== At 18 DEC 2001 10:03PM kc wrote: ===
Oystein
"....You sit there working peacefully in Form Designer's Menu Designer, building up your menus, save your menus, save your form, and then suddenly they are all gone."
That is exactly how it happened. I think James Birnie is right. I have had no problems with all my other forms as they all have a datatable source except for this MDI form which is not attached to any table. Even when I start from a fresh MDI window, it still happens. I will see if attaching a control to a data source in the MDI will make a difference.
Still no response from RTI on this matter.
KC
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=== At 19 DEC 2001 03:29AM Oystein Reigem wrote: ===
KC,
Do you use a style sheet when you create the MDI frame? Try without (don't select anything and click OK). See if that makes a difference.
- Oystein -
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=== At 20 DEC 2001 03:19PM Robert Lee wrote: ===
Ah yes! Stylesheets. Hmmmm. Problems you will have with them. Avoid them you must. Hmmmm. Peril awaits those who choose this path. Dark indeed. Very dark. Hmmmm
Yoda
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=== At 20 DEC 2001 04:44PM Ray Chan wrote: ===
Is that you Gollum?
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=== At 21 DEC 2001 05:05AM Robert Lee wrote: ===
No, Gandolf, its me Frodo - calling all the way from Middle Earth. And yes they have the web here too!
Merry xmas all. We plan to. NZ closes down for a couple of weeks now - lots of 'gone fishing' and 'gone to beach' signs on lots of doors. See yall next year.
Robert Lee
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