Hi there!

I have a implemented the short/long mod to DBMan. In addition, I created a "printable" version of the record that rearranges the graphics and text to print better.

My problem is that for some reason the printable version does not automatically format the text (line breaks, etc), so it long fields appear as one ugly block.

My printable version is created through a new subroutine called sub html_printable in the .pl file. I can't seem to figure out how records are passed to "sub build_html_record" in db.cgi for formatting? Anyone know of a good place to start looking?

Are you letting dbman autogenerate the pages? in default.cfg:
# Auto generate the html forms (1 = Yes, 0 = No).
$db_auto_generate = 0;

many folks doN't let dbman build the records for them. since the html output is pretty bland. If you are autogenerating I suggest to change the above like I have then look at html.pl and then you can change the html to pretty much however you want.

JPdeni also has a friendlier version available. I like the way she has set up her html.pl It's very easy to read.

anyway the the sub html_record_long and sub html_record_short are the places that I started with first.

good luck and sorry I was off the mark

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on the pages in between ...

I need to make a clarification I think. DBMan is *not* autogenerating the HTML for me. I do not want the pages to autogenerate, my problem is in the output of the data. Imagine a two column table, with the field name (Name) on the left, and the field contents (Bob Smith) on the right. When you go to the long version of the record, line breaks and things that were entered in the field at the time of input are present. Example:

This is some lovely text.
Don't you just love my text?
I think this is the most beautiful text the world has ever seen!!

Don't you agree?
[/red]

When you go to the "printable" version however, it looks like this:


This is some lovely text.Don't you just love my text?I think this is the most beautiful text the world has ever seen!!Don't you agree?


How is it that the first long version knows when to put in the line breaks (I imagine it searches for hard carriage return symbols and converts them to line breaks) and the "printable" version does not?

I guess I was off the mark, :-)

How much did you change from the long_html to the printable_html ? I wonder if the problem is in your html coding... if the printable isn't long why don't you post it.

good luck

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on the pages in between ...

As requested, here is sub html_printable:

i think u need to change the following at the top of the code....

my (%rec) = @_;
$rec{'YOUR FIELD NAME HERE'}=~s/\n/<BR>/g;
%rec = &get_record($in{$db_key});

It should add line breaks to the field you name......

Thanks! That worked :) I had to move the YOUR FIELD NAME HERE line below the others though, like this:

Code:

my (%rec) = @_;
%rec = &get_record($in{$db_key});
$rec{'YOUR FIELD NAME HERE'}=~s/\n/<BR>/g;

A couple of questions though...
Is there any way to apply this to all fields instead of one?
In db.cgi in sub build_html_record, in addition to inserting line breaks, it also recognizes and formats URL's and e-mail addresses. Do I have to recreate this whole process manually within the printable subroutine?

Why do you have

my (%rec) = @_;

and

%rec = &get_record($in{$db_key});

You are either using %rec passed from another routine or you are using &get_record to populate %rec - you don't want both.

For all fields use:

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/

That was redundant, thanks for pointing it out, I have fixed that. It still doesn't solve my problem with webpage and email formatting though.

The foreach code above should.

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/

That code had no effect when I put it into my printable subrouting. I am using:

%rec = &get_record($in{$db_key});

to call up the record, does the foreach loop above need to be restructured because of this?

Sorry try:

Mods:http://wiredon.net/gt/download.shtml
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/

That worked! Thanks everyone for your help :) May the force be with you, or something.