Jumping fields in Form editor. What is the root cause of this annoying glitch?

Hi community,

I so far haven´t put much effort into improving this one. But I determined the root cause while working on another project -> it´s JavaScript timing.

Especially when you work with low internet speed (= me when working from home), the jumping fields glitch occurs. In the past I have seen the bug more often, as we had a less powerful server back than.

When saving a Form, certain functions seem to be executed while other operations in the chain weren´t finished yet. This produced the jumping fields. The Form is updated, while the data in the DOM/server wasn´t updated yet. The form editor don´t call the necessary function with async/await, promises or at least some timeouts. 

But: I wouldn´t recommend to spent too much on this one. There is a "responsive Form editor" mentioned in the roadmap. It´s targeted to Release 28.  I don´t expect it to work perfect in this version cause it´s a brand new feature, but hey - it´s something!

If you are at ACE 2023 - Eli from Aras makes a demo about the new form editor. The new editor it´s probably intended for optimizing Forms for different screen sizes (desktop/mobile/...). But I hope it will result in an general more modern Form editor. Let´s hope they test the new stuff with low internet speed....

Regards

Angela

Good morning angelap, the same thing happens to me. From time to time the editor goes crazy and pressing save messes up the fields.
I've found that if I click "unlock item" and lock it again, the fields go back to where they belong. since they are really well saved.

I thought these poltergeists only happened to me!! hehehe.

Thanks for the input, I will try that! I never tried lock/unlock cause I always was scared that my precious design ideas would get lost when I play around to much in the editor.

My 12SP7 Innovator luckily still uses classic lock/unlock in the Form editor. Later versions removed it until it reappeared with a updated claim/unclaim flag in the latest versions. 

This "convert Form into Goulash on save" glitch is really a know issue. Even the trainers mentioned it, when I visited "Aras Configuration course" many years ago. 

I'm glad I could contribute something to you :). You are a "professional" of ARAS.

Ahh, here as we have 11.0 SP9 we still have the option to block.
I'm trying to convince the "bosses" to update to the latest version. But they are not very convinced.
We are even subscribers, but the truth is, i've been here for 4-5 months and before they never updated anything, so: Newbie and fearful bosses, hahaha. outdated system!!!.

The truth is that the editor is very painful, it is not possible to align automatically, etc. Basic things!!. I don't know if in later versions it will have more functions.

Well the form editor is still the same in the latest version, so this one is not a big argument for update. But you can type in x/y position manually to align elements faster and mure accurate. This saves a lot of time and nerves. Form editor is pretty much the same since 20 years and it wasn´t in the focus for modernization yet. But it´s now finally on the roadmap,

Funny that your company is happy about paying for something that it barely uses. Innovator 11 is still widespread used, so you´re not the last person on earth stuck to this version. But one day you will be forced to upgrade. Innovator 11 is already EOL at Aras. You will not get security patches or bug fixes. Just imagine some browser update or server patch suddenly kills your instance. 

But before you rush things. Your bosses are right. If you don´t have full experience yet, upgrade just makes trouble. Before you can start to upgrade, there is some work to do.

Get an overview of:

- What is used in your system at all
- What custom ItemType, Form, etc. are used
- Check if your colleagues customized existing code
- Check for customized files in the codetree despite the config files
- External stuff from Aras partners (CAD connector...)

Aras prefers when you have a test plan for upgrade. Something they and you can step through to test out that anything works as expected. If you cannot tell them what your Innovator shall do, how shall they knew? So really try to understand your Innovator instance as much as possible. You don´t need to unterstand each single line code, but at least know it´s purpose. --> "We use this custom Action to do this and that..."

Ask support they shall tell you what you have to know and prepare for upgrade, even you don´t plan to do now. 

Get yourself an independent test server if you don´t have one yet. There you can install the latest version and play around. 

Do it because a stranger on the internet tells you to.