Collapsing form height when controls are hidden

[sjnbham]

A couple of more days into Nintex forms now. I figured out how to suppress controls when the form is in different modes. This get's me part of the way there. However, there are some things I haven't been able to figure out like how to "collapse" the form height and visible controls when the hidden ones are suppressed. Without that behavior, large blank spaces are left on the form instead of having it more compact. We use this a lot where the initial creator of a list item will only need to fill in a few fields. But then the next time the item is edited (often by someone designated in a workflow) there are additional fields to be completed.

Anyone know how to accomplish this?

[john_luangci]

Have noticed that when a control you are hiding is flush/too close to other controls, the form will sometimes not resize properly. Suggestion I have been given is to add a little space between the control you are hiding and the other controls above and below it.

[#3]

I assume that you have added the function to the controls correctly...

With this said:

Its my experience that the Expand-Collaps function can be a bit buggy. What is very important is that the controls are correctly alligned. A way to ensure this is to simply release the 'Snap to grid' and re-enable it.

You will find it under Settings --> Snap to grid.

It is Yes per default, but choose no, and the then yes again. It will give you a warning as it will re-align all controls in your form. Click ok and publish your form. You can now see if this is the issue...

I hope this will help you!

/Rasmus

[sjnbham]

Tried this with limited improvement.

[sjnbham]

Tried this with slight improvement but realized my issue might be related to more than what I stated in my original question. I think it has to do with the form reformatting when hidden controls become visible. Here's a link illustrating the root cause I think.

http://www.cob.org/data/forms.mp4

[jan · Accepted solution]

Hi Steven,

Great idea explaining this in a video! We have had a lot of success in hiding a group of fields by putting them in a panel on the form. You can then apply the rule on the panel to show or hide the group of controls and opposed to individual controls. The formatting is respected in the panels and the fields show up as expected.

I hope this helps.

[#7]

Yes +1 for the panel I was just telling someone about this.

[sjnbham]

Perfect - that's exactly the workaround I needed! Spent a number of hours on this and am grateful future forms will go much more smoothly

[#9]

Hi Steven,

This link http://www.cob.org/data/forms.mp4  is NOT working.

If you provide any other resource that would be a great help. Thanks.

[sjnbham]

I pulled the video since the issue was addressed and there's no way to upload videos to this forum. However, I recently learned several other steps that need to be taken to ensure proper collapsing of forms:

1. Use panels for the control or collection of controls you want to hide (thanks jan‌)
2. Place the rules in the order which you want them to execute. If you're having issues, try adjusting the order of the rules.
3. Do NOT use the same rule on multiple panels. Create a separate rule for each, even if they do the same thing. This was a big gotcha for me as it's not mentioned in the in-product online help and I wasted a number of hours on this. Nintex Support finally clued me in.
4. Ensure your formulas are correct. I'm not certain of this, but I believe I had panels being hidden, even though the formula was not correct. That caused me to chase my tale for quite a while. Tip: if you mess up the formula badly enough, all of the contents of the form will disappear.

Hope that helps some. I finally feel like I know enough to build an interactive form now I asked Nintex Support to pass along the request to have #3 added to the online help file in a future release.