Field keeps losing its name

I’ve experienced this problem on and off for some months. If, after changing the settings of a date field in a form, I open the (previously closed) data sheet and click on the properties box, that same field has lost its name and has changed from a Date field to a Choices field:

19%20am

Any idea how or why this might happen?

What does this mean?

In thinking about what you might possibly mean, I realized that the Field menu has a bunch of items it should not have in a form window, in fact maybe this menu should only be available when a data sheet window is topmost.

The date field value is fed from a pop-up menu in the form. I changed the name of the variable which populates the pop-up menu.

I didn’t use the Field menu at all.

I’ll need more detail than that to have any chance of diagnosing this. It sounds like you have some code that is doing this, perhaps posting the code would be revealing.

This is probably not related to the problem but if you open a New Empty Database from the Edit menu it will open with the single field named “A” in the header but the Name is blank in the Properties panel. A procedure can communicate with the “A” field normally but, if you activate the Name text box in the Properties panel and then click out of it, it will then remove the “A” field name from the header leaving the field name completely blank.

If you add a new field it is automatically named “B” and shows in the Properties panel. Going back to the original field will now have “A” also showing in the Properties panel. This is how the new db opens:

image

I don’t think it is related to Michael’s problem, but it certainly is a bug. Also, you’ll notice that several other properties are not displayed properly, including the Type, Align, Clairvoyance etc.

Normally this is where I say “I added this to Bitbucket”, but instead of doing that, I just fixed it immediately :slight_smile:

I may be getting closer to this - it’s always the first field that loses its name and type:

I don’t know how you are getting to this state, but given the bug I just fixed I’ll bet the field is actually ok, it’s the display in the properties panel that is wrong. Try making this one line procedure, and if you encounter this again, run the procedure to force the field properties panel to update itself.

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If nothing else, this will test my theory that the field is ok and that it is just a display problem.

I think you’re right - I was trying to get a Text Editor Object to display a date and ended up having to delete it and start again - the field name kept dropping out during this process.

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I have a database created by File->New->New Empty Database. I had forms and procedures in it and it kept losing the name of the first field (as in all previous cases).

I decided to spend a bit of time on this - I’ve removed every form and procedure one by one and tested it - the problem remained. I have now re-installed Panorama X and rebooted my Mac and it’s still there, This is it before I close the file:

44%20pm

… and this is when I open it (whether I quit or not):

06%20pm

Removing the data makes no difference. I’ll try again, using a file created by copying another. Jim - do you want to look at the file?

A thought - I set the file up originally with a field name and a form name each containing an underscore and later changed those names. Is an underscore a no-no?

Underscore should not be a problem.

Sure, if you send me the file I can see if I can reproduce the problem.

I see that even before you closed the file, there was a problem – no alignment option is selected. That should not be possible. There definitely must be some sort of bug happening here.

That’s my fault - I retyped the name and selected the type dozens of times and must have forgotten to select an alignment. Maybe closing it without an alignment is a problem?

No, I just tested it - makes no difference. The file is in the mail.

Isn’t that a refresh problem of the Properties panel only?

Michael’s screenshot shows that the field has not lost its name: The name is still displayed in the column header of the data sheet.

No, that is not your fault. It should not be possible for a field to have NO alignment. It has to be something, left, right or center, but it can never be nothing at all. If you haven’t chosen an alignment it should default to Left. For it to show no alignment selected is a bug, which I suspect is tied to your missing field name. The same issue of no alignment appeared in the bug that Gary posted earlier in this thread. In that case, the problem was that a nil field pointer was being passed to the property inspector display code, and all of the field properties were empty. I’ll bet if your screen shot was taller you’d also see problems with the Data Entry properties as well.

Ok, I have figured out how to duplicate the problem Michael originally reported on this thread. It can be easily duplicated in ANY database – just open the data sheet and then immediately open the Properties panel. As soon as you click in a different column, the problem clears up, even if you click back to the first field. There’s nothing wrong with the database or the field, this is simply a display glitch in Panorama. Since starting off first thing by opening the Properties panel is probably fairly rare, this hasn’t been encountered too often before. (You can see this without closing and re-opening the database simply by closing the data sheet, leaving other forms or procedures in the database open, then opening the data sheet from the View menu.)

I think this is a cousin of the problem Gary mentioned above, and the fix will probably be very similar. In the meantime, just make sure you click in a column other than the first one before opening the Field Properties panel.

I’ve discovered another dimension to this. Opening a file and clicking in the Properties panel causes the problem in that database. But, if you then open any other database and open its data sheet, the first field exhibits the same problem. It appears that the ailment is contagious.

No, it’s not contagious, it is simply a bug that will occur with ANY Panorama X database, as I described above. It’s not unique to your database.

I understand your point but my point is, after the first one, the problem occurs with every database without opening the Properties panel. or did you already know this?

I don’t understand what you are saying. The problem doesn’t appear until you open the Properties panel.

As far as I can tell, this happens with any data sheet, at any time. I can duplicate it at will, even with a new database that has never been saved. I don’t have to open the database you sent me to see the problem.

The good news is since it is so easy to duplicate, that should make it fairly easy to track down.