Layout Weirdness

Questions
, ,
1

Took on a client recently who have a big multi database solution built by someone else, and just came across something really weird with their file.
A user said that they wanted a window to be larger as some stuff was cut off which I thought was weird as I made the window appear to be as wide as the layout. So when playing around I noticed that this layout, and others have a weird thing where each layout part is said to be around 20pts smaller than the page itself.
Here is one layout with nothing selected, just showing the width of the layout:

Screen Shot 2021-08-23 at 16.24.17

Here is what it looks like if I click on the "Body" part:
Screen Shot 2021-08-23 at 16.24.24

So I checked another layout at random and here's the width:
Screen Shot 2021-08-23 at 16.24.30

and here is the body:
Screen Shot 2021-08-23 at 16.24.36

Looking at the layout there are no objects that have an edge that corresponds to those values either.
Has anyone seen this before?
Is it ghosts? Is this file haunted? Or am I insane?

2

What version of FM are you working on?

3

Oh right, my bad.
I'm on Mac using 19.3.2.206

4

Thanks and welcome to the fmsoup!

5

It's Gremlins, I tells ya.

6

@JimmyCox, I've only seen point numbers precision expressed to three decimal places after a file has been converted to v12 format. It was actually eight decimal places.

We had a university full of systems running v5, v7, and v9 that had to move onto v14. We had a lot of blurry layouts after conversion. Every object's height and width were a fraction, no integers to be seen. I can't recall seeing your body width problem but I may have buried the memory.

7

All the positions set to 0 is strange.

I suggest you work on a COPY of this file, and do some experiments:

  • Resize the layout and check if position numbers are changing
  • Change the width or height and check if the position numbers change
  • Set the position numbers for right and bottom, check if size numbers change and if the layout itself changes
8

Thats the layout info. It only has width, all the positions are normally zero.

9

As Malcolm pointed out, the positions at zero are just for when nothing is selected which is normal. So the images with 0 in all four positions are when i've selected nothing on the screen, and the ones that have right and bottom values (that are decimals) are when I've selected the body part

10

I think this was converted at some point in the past. It was an in house developer who built it and then retired and we took over, so it's been around a while I think.

11

Ahum :confused: :open_mouth:

12

If the layouts are still using classic theme, or modified classic theme, you have a world of improvements that you can make. Depending on how much time is available to you.

When I was doing the transition from earlier versions up we quickly found that new layouts built on any-theme-but-classic worked better ( load faster, draw more quickly, crisper lines, etc ) and that any weird problems that arose after the conversion (like yours) went away.

1 Like
13

+1000 Classic theme is a source of troubles.

1 Like