Field width alignment after 2006 to 2008 upgrade

[Tylor Hagerman]

Field width alignment after 2006 to 2008 upgrade

I've noticed that after upgrading from 2006 to 2008 all of the textarea type fields are no longer being displayed the same way they used to be.  In the 2006 version I would create text fields with a width of 50 and textarea fields with 37 columns, which would end up being displayed in the browser as the same width.  After the upgrade all of the textareas are smaller in width.  I tried changing the width of one to 50 and that made it match the width of the text field.  If a change was made to make it easier to keep the widths of different field types aligned, that is great for building future services, but I don't want to have to go update every service across every environment to make the forms display properly.  Has anyone else run into this? 

[Ed Contini - newScale]

Tylor,

Here's the scoop directly from the man who runs our UI team.

In 2006 we had a bug where the field sizes specified for “text” and “textarea” fields were rendered as different sizes. Therefore the customer would use a field with 50 for “text” and 37 for “textarea”. This has been fixed in 2008. So, in 2008 if 50 is specified for “text” and “textarea”, the rendered versions of these are aligned.

To solve the problem two approaches can be taken.

#1. Update all “textarea”

[James Fuller]

Here's a really long ugly SQL statement that I had packed away that would show you the details of your "textarea" fields.

select
DefService.ServiceID as ServiceID,
DefService.Name as ServiceName,
DefDataDictionary.DictionaryID as DictionaryID,
DefDataDictionary.Name as Dictionary,
DefData.Name as FieldName,
DefData.DataType as FieldDataType,
DefData.MaxLength as FieldMaxLength,
DefObjectDataHTML.InputType as FieldInputType,
DefObjectDataHTML.Mandatory as FieldMan

[Emir E]

Tylor, maybe messing with the CSS can make it appear better

[Brandy DeMarco]

This is fantastic - and solves 1/2 my problem.  I've also noticed that the help text next to the fields that are the same size isn't consistant.  It's quite frustrating!  I am wondering if it's related - up until reading this, I was absolutely sure it was something I was doing wrong.  Ed - do you have any more tricks?  :-)

If anyone's interested in seeing what I am seeing or if the explanation above is fuzzy, let me know and I will post a screenprint example.

[Tylor Hagerman]

Thanks Ed -

The Update SQL statement had the desired effect and all of the fields now align correctly.

- Tylor

[Ed Contini - newScale]

Brandy,

Post an example here and we'll get it right into the hands of our UI team to see what they can tell us.

[Tylor Hagerman]

I'm having the same problem as well.  Some of the help text is randomly showing up not aligned and the other UI issue is that dictionaries without captions (so that the fields look like they are a part of the previous dictionary) are missing a dividing line between the fields making the resulting form look inconsistent...some fields have dividing lines and some don't.  I'l attach a screen shot.  I'm also going to submit these to NCC.

[Tylor Hagerman]

No, we never got a support solution.  I'm hoping there is a fix in the service pack that was just released, but I haven't had a chance to check for it yet. 

[Mihir Mihir]

Hi Tylor,

Could you find any solution to 'dictionaries without captions' issue ? we are on 2008.3 and have the same issue.

- Mihir

[Angelo S. - Dominion Resources Angelo S. - Dominion Resources]

Looks like the Field Label text alignment (right side of screenshot above) is a known issue and will be looked at in a future service pack release to 2008.3.  Unofficial confirmation I got was SP6...