How do I prevent form error messages from causing editor buttons from being moved below the form?

How do I prevent form error messages from causing editor buttons from being moved below the form?

robert.odegard01robert.odegard01 Posts: 6Questions: 1Answers: 0

In addition to field level errors displaying below each field in the default editor template I also display a form level error message which displays by default at the bottom of the editor form. The issue I am having is when the message exceeds a certain length it is causing the form buttons to be shifted below the bottom of the editor.

if the message is short the form looks like as expected:

If the message is longer the form buttons are pushed down below the bottom of the form like this:

The code I am using in the controller that returns the error message is below where I set the value of Error with whatever error I want to display.

    response = new DataResponse<TModel>
    {
        Data = rowData,
        Error = errs.Any() ? "Item cannot be saved. See errors above" : "",
        FieldErrors = errs
    };

    ...

    return Json(response);

Where DataResponse and IDataResponse) code is:

    public class DataResponse<T> : IDataResponse<T>
        where T : BaseModel, new()
    {
        public DataResponse()
        {
            FieldErrors = new List<FieldError>();
        }

        public List<T> Data { get; set; }
        public string Error { get; set; }
        public List<FieldError> FieldErrors { get; set; }
    }

    interface IDataResponse<T>
        where T : BaseModel, new()
    {
        List<T> Data { get; set; }
        string Error { get; set; }
        List<FieldError> FieldErrors { get; set; }
    }

How do I prevent longer form level error message from causing the form buttons from being pushed off the bottom of the form? I would make a custom template but there is not documentation on how to configure the are where buttons are displayed. Everything else uses as expected...

Any help is greatly appreciated

Answers

  • allanallan Posts: 61,446Questions: 1Answers: 10,054 Site admin

    You could add:

    div.DTE div.DTE_Form_Error {
        white-space: nowrap;
        overflow: hidden;
        text-overflow: ellipsis;
        max-width: 80%;
    }
    

    to your CSS.

    That will keep it on a single line, but your user wouldn't see the whole thing!

    The problem with allowing it flexi height is that a number of other parts of the CSS assume a fixed height footer (to allow for the scrolling of the form body without moving the footer).

    Beyond that, I'll need to have a bit of a think about it I'm afraid...

    Allan

  • robert.odegard01robert.odegard01 Posts: 6Questions: 1Answers: 0

    Hi Allan,

    This is what I have come up with for CSS as a temporary solution. It works, though not ideal.

    Override CSS:

    div.DTE_Form_Content {
        padding-bottom: 40px !important;
    }
    
    div.DTE_Footer {
        height: 80px !important;
        padding-top: 5px !important;
    }
    div.DTE_Form_Error {
        padding-top: 0px !important;
        max-width: 70%;
    }
    

    Where the padding-bottom: 40px causes the Form_Content area to resize to compensate for the increased Footer height being set to 80px.

    The results is an enlarged footer area that looks like this:

    This can accommodate larger, but not too long, errors like this:

    A better solution would be great as these types of errors/warnings need to be displayed to the user and they are not field based errors. So having this lower footer message area is an ideal location to display them.

    RobO

  • allanallan Posts: 61,446Questions: 1Answers: 10,054 Site admin

    I've filed an issue on our internal tracker (DD-1344) so this doesn't get lost and I'll look at it for the next release.

    Regards,
    Allan

  • allanallan Posts: 61,446Questions: 1Answers: 10,054 Site admin

    Just to say that this will be fixed in 1.9.3. I've moved the form error message into the form body, rather than the footer - as it wouldn't have been possible without a major restructure to multi-line the footer. That will likely happen in future, but not for the patch release.

    Allan

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