Love TFP but having some issues

[Paul Cotton]

I’m a recent convert to Tap Forms Pro for macos. I originally used Bento, then moved to Filemaker when they shut that down, and have spent years setting up systems for various things in that. I’ve been unhappy with Claris as a company for years now, but felt locked in with no hope of finding a workable solution to break away. TFP has provided me with a way to do just that.

I am extremely happy with TFP, but I encountered some issues in setting things up – some feel like bugs, some are no doubt just new user error/ignorance.

1) In layout mode, line doesn’t layer on top of other shapes, text or images

2) cmd c + cmd v page elements screws up editing, example:
add a few fields to layout
add rectangle to layout
layer list: clicking in list selects the correct elements in layout
cmd c + cmd v to duplicate rectangle
note that it doesn’t create a new layer for the duplicate
selecting in the layer list is now out of sync with the elements in the layout
going to form view removes the duplicate rectangle
back to layout view and delete the original rectangle – an entry in layers remains
go to form view and the duplicate rectangle is visible again

3) after making a backup of a password protected file via file>backup, on re-opening, the show/hide forms list, display form/layout inspectors, and advanced search buttons are all disabled (can still use drop down menu for these functions)

4) File size seems massive relative to data size. Importing relatively modest csv’s has ballooned the TPF file-size, eg I have a csv with 17,191 records, 3.7MB total, and each record is ~200 characters long. Importing that increased TFP file size by 72.5MB, even after doing a “rebuild search index”. This is an example record:

“max 5-letter word”,””,””,””,”4 characters”,””,””,”email address”,”email address”,”max 60 character term”,”max 60 character term”,”date”,”USD”,”number”,”date”

A different 1MB excel file increased TFP by 10MB. The filemaker database I used was 65MB, including more data than I imported. The two equivalent TFP files total ~250MB.

5) Notes fields do strange things with their margins. When I type to the very right-side edge of the notes field, all of the text jumps to hard-left, removing the lefthand margin. I have to move my cursor close to the left-side edge of the notes field and drag left to move the text back right. Dragging cursor right near right-side edge also moves the text left.

6) A calculation field using + for multiple number fields sums fields until it hits an empty field, then treats that sum so far as text and concatenates the sum so far with the fields after as if text. Is there any way to either have empty number fields treated as 0, or to bulk change all empty fields to 0?

7) Sorting text fields interprets the whole number portion at the beginning of a field rather as characters eg 1word,2word,10word, rather than 1word, 10word, 2word – is there any way to stop this?

8) In note fields set to plain text and a specific font/size, new text defaults to font family=no value, typeface=””, and size=0, rather than the font set in layout view. Also, it does still recognise and store changes of font/style made in sections of the text.

9) I have a form with a subform. The subform has records with dates, the main form has a calculation field that shows the latest date from the subform. This works fine in macos. I used TFP on an iPad, entering data into the subform direct. On reload to mac, it didn’t update the latest date fields when viewing those records.

10) I have a text field that uses a pick list and a script field that listens for changes to that text field. When I change the value, the script isn’t executed – it only executes when I click on the bottom-left “recalculate formulas” button. I looked at the Books Library template and the Sortable Title script field in that behaves the same way for me.

[Paul Cotton]

I’m also having some issues with this forum/site. I just tried to edit my post. On clicking submit it hasn’t changed the post and now I no longer see an “edit” option.

Also, when I go to my name top right of screen and click “edit profile”, it opens this page: https://www.tapforms.com/using-tap-forms-pro/love-tfp-but-having-some-issues/ – which isn’t my profile, just some page with missing images.

(I use safari on macos for browsing).

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