Form item dependencies in grids

Form items interact with each other in terms of width, depending on the front-end widget size.

This example illustrates how form items are dependent on each other inside the grid.

GRID
{
  [a      ]
  [b      ]
}
END

This .per implies that form items a and b start at the same position and have the same size, whatever a and b are.

This rule leads to very different results, especially when a large widget is assigned into a small number of cells.

Example:

LAYOUT 
GRID
{
[a|b   ][f     ]
[c|d]   [e     ]
}
END 
END 

ATTRIBUTES 
CHECKBOX a = formonly.a, TEXT="A Checkbox"; 
EDIT b = formonly.b; 
EDIT c = formonly.c; 
CHECKBOX d = formonly.d, TEXT="Another Checkbox"; 
EDIT e = formonly.e; 
EDIT f = formonly.f; 
END

The grid is computed with regard to the character cells in the form definition:

Then the minimum size of each widget and the layout is computed.

Cells (0,1) and (1,3) contain a checkbox; these checkboxes will enlarge columns 1 and 3.

Because the EDIT field "c" is defined to have the same width as checkbox "a", it will be much larger as expected.

To avoid this visual result, you must assign a realistic number of grid cells for each form item.

GRID 
{ 
[a        |b  ][f     ] 
[c|d          ][e     ] 
}

Even if the grid area is wider in the source form file, the real graphical result will be smaller.