Dynamically Hide/Display Rich Text Fields

Glen Urban  January 9 2010 02:34:09 PM

Many Notes developers are aware of the problems with using Hide When formula on Notes Rich Text fields. It can have unpredictable results on the contents of the field, these are detailed in an IBM Technote here. In that note two solutions are proposed 1) use a computed Subform and 2) use a Controlled Access Section.  But these solutions are not without their problems.

On reading this blog entry it suddenly occurred to me that using a Layer could offer a better solution.

1) Create a Layer and place the Rich Text Field on that layer.
2) When you create a layer you will see that it has a Layer Anchor. You can set a Hide When formula on this anchor.

The advantages of this approach are:

1) The Hide When is not on the Rich Text Field so no unpredictable results
2) You can hide/show the Layer/Field dynamically. In the screen shot below I have used a Radio Button that can show/hide the Rich Text field.

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