Pasting Table rows

Report · Jun 11, 2009

One of my clients recently pointed out the following issue after going from FM7.2 to FM8:

In frame 7, it was possible to copy a row from the structure view (click on tablerow element and "Copy"), then insert the cursor in the structure view between to row and "Paste".

From v8 upwards (have confirmed it for Frame 9 as well), following this same procedure does not result in an actual pasting of new rows. There is a row on the clipboard (selecting another row and pasting results in the "do you want to add below/above/replace dialog"), and it looks like Frame does register some form of action. Trying an "Undo" does nothing, while a next undo reverts an action performed before trying to paste the row.

Bug? Feature? Undocumented change?

Doesn't look like it's a "known issue" at least, as there's not much to be found on the matter (I've google my little heart out).

Any info is welcome

Report · Jun 11, 2009

When you select a row in the displayed table, look at the structure. You will notice that the row element is NOT selected, just the cell elements. You are correct that if you select the row element in the structure view and cut, you cannot paste the row at the appropriate place. On the other hand, you can insert a row element from the Elements catalog, which inserts the appropriate cell elements also. I think Frame is doing NOT actually copying or cutting the row element, but just the cell elements it contains. I am using Frame 9.

I think it is doing this to avoid problems in Frame 7. I used Frame 7 up until a few months ago. I had come across tables created by others that included row elements WITHOUT cell elements. I could not see them in the graphic view, only in the structure view. And in the structure view, I could NOT delete them. I do not recall trying to add cell elements to them. The only way to get rid of them was to create a new table and copy and paste the good rows from the old table to the new one, and then delete the old one. I had to be careful how I did it because sometimes the copy would bring one of those empty row elements along. I think the trick was to avoid selecting multiple rows when one of the rows was next to an empty row element. To this day, I have been unable to find a scenario that caused the creation of empty row elements in a table.

So, my GUESS is that the copy/cut mechanism in Frame 7 had some bugs that were corrected in Frame 8 and 9. The result is that one cannot actually copy or cut row elements, even though the structure view shows them as selected. The delete rows and paste rows dialog box handles all the row cutting and pasting.

Van

Report · Jun 12, 2009

Thanks for your answer.

I'm not entirely sure it's a fix, in stead of a bug, however.

That "select" behaviour was the same in fm7, so nothing new there.

And in addition, there -is- a way to copy rows in the structure view. By dragging a row with the alt-key pressed, you copy the selected row. Due to ui behaviour, this is limited to a single row at a time. I have no idea if the functions used for that operation are the same for copy/paste, so this may or may not be in any way related.

Your "empty rows", by the way, sound very much like straddled rows. I've seen quite a few of those randomly "appear", usually after converting unstructured documents to a structured format.

Report · Jun 12, 2009

I am sure you have noticed this, but moving multiply selected rows in the structure view applies to all elements. Selecting a sequence of elements and dragging them in structure view results in only the first element being moved.

By the way, the empty rows were not straddled, but I do think they resulted from converting unstructured documents to structured ones.

Report · Jun 12, 2009

It does sound like a bug to me, or at least a reduction in functionality. Van, the situation you encountered sounds like a corrupt file or a bug too, not something that needs a reduction in functionality to fix. But maybe they just did what they had to do. I'll miss it, though.

Russ