Fixed width form field

Fixed width form field

[Matthew Baker]

Hallo,

I want to design a form in which fields appear in table cells so that they
line up correctly.  In order to deal with baseline alignment and things, I
use the label field in the form.  I have a macro like

\def\putfield[#1]#2{\hbox{\field[#1][#2]}}

I would like the field to extend to fill the table cell (which I set to a
fixed size with the w table format option).  How can I set the field up to
fit to this size?  I can't simple set the field width to the desired size
because I don't know how long the label is.  I'd like ideally to set the
width of the frame around the field to something fixed and then set the
label and field widths to "fit", eg

\setupfield [MyFieldSetup] [frame, label, horizontal] [width=60mm]
  [width=fit] [width=fit]

But that doesn't work.  Any way to do this?

- Matt

--
Dr. Matthew Baker           matthew.baker@gmd.de
GMD - FIT.MMK               http://fit.gmd.de/hci/pages/matthew.baker.html

Re: Fixed width form field

[Hans Hagen]

Matthew Baker wrote:

> I want to design a form in which fields appear in table cells so that they
> line up correctly.  In order to deal with baseline alignment and things, I
> use the label field in the form.  I have a macro like
> 
> \def\putfield[#1]#2{\hbox{\field[#1][#2]}}
> 
> I would like the field to extend to fill the table cell (which I set to a
> fixed size with the w table format option).  How can I set the field up to
> fit to this size?  I can't simple set the field width to the desired size
> because I don't know how long the label is.  I'd like ideally to set the
> width of the frame around the field to something fixed and then set the
> label and field widths to "fit", eg
> 
> \setupfield [MyFieldSetup] [frame, label, horizontal] [width=60mm]
>   [width=fit] [width=fit]
> 
> But that doesn't work.  Any way to do this?

A quick tip (untested)

\setbox0=\hbox{#1}% label
\dimen0=60mm
\advance\dimen0 by -\wd0 
\advende\dimen0 by <offsets> % try some 2ex  
<set width of field to \dimen0> % if needed \edef\TheWidth{\the\dimen0}
... width=\TheWidth

or something along these lines. 

Hans

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Re: Fixed width form field

[Matthew Baker]

On Tue, 12 Oct 1999, Hans Hagen wrote:

> A quick tip (untested)
> 
> \setbox0=\hbox{#1}% label
> \dimen0=60mm
> \advance\dimen0 by -\wd0 
> \advende\dimen0 by <offsets> % try some 2ex  
> <set width of field to \dimen0> % if needed \edef\TheWidth{\the\dimen0}
> ... width=\TheWidth

Yes, that worked.  I should be able to incorporate this into my putfield
macro now.  Thanks!

- Matt

--
Dr. Matthew Baker           matthew.baker@gmd.de
GMD - FIT.MMK               http://fit.gmd.de/hci/pages/matthew.baker.html