Objects on the template editor (on editable products) can be told to move around depending on what content the user puts in.
A very common requirement is for objects to be listed as follows:
Name
Position
Telephone
Email
Twitter
Skype
Address 1
Address 2
Company Phone
Website
Like this:
If the user doesn’t have Twitter, he can leave that empty and it would then look like:
Of course that doesn’t look great. You have two options. You can anchor everything to the top or the bottom. If Name is the anchor, then you give all the following fields the option ‘Keep with previous’. The items in the list would then move up and look like this:
On the template editor it would look like this:
Name
Position (Keep with Previous)
Telephone (Keep with Previous)
Email (Keep with Previous)
Twitter (Keep with Previous)
Skype (Keep with Previous)
Address 1 (Keep with Previous)
Address 2 (Keep with Previous)
Company Phone (Keep with Previous)
Website (Keep with Previous)
What’s happening is that “Website” is moving up and taking the XY and orientation of the Twitter field, since Twitter is left empty. If you want everything to move down, and the Website is the anchor, then all fields except Website should be marked ‘Keep with Next’. This would then result in:
On the template editor it would look like this:
Name (Keep with Next)
Position (Keep with Next)
Telephone (Keep with Next)
Email (Keep with Next)
Twitter (Keep with Next)
Skype (Keep with Next)
Address 1 (Keep with Next)
Address 2 (Keep with Next)
Company Phone (Keep with Next)
Website
In all cases, the field that you don’t want to move, should not be marked with a ‘Keep with’ option.
Heres a more complicated example with 2 columns:
Now, lets say the user hasn’t got “Twitter” or a “Company Telephone” everything is going to move forward towards Website, since thats the anchor. It would look like this:
This is because when a field is omitted, the next or previous fields take on the XY co-ords (and the orientation) of the previous or next fields. Here are some more examples:
2 columns as above, but left hand column is ALIGNED RIGHT and the right hand column is ALIGNED LEFT
Now without “Twitter” or a “Company Telephone”
Usually, columns don’t run over into each other. To stop that, you need two anchors (where anchor doesn’t have a “keep with”. .):
Name (Keep with Next)
Position (Keep with Next)
Telephone (Keep with Next)
Email (Keep with Next)
Twitter (Keep with Next)
Skype
Address 1 (Keep with Next)
Address 2 (Keep with Next)
Company Phone (Keep with Next)
Website
For the sake of clarity we’ll make both columns left aligned again. Once again without “Twitter” or a “Company Telephone”:
The position of all the fields is irrelevant. Each one takes the XY and orientation of a next or previous empty field. This means you can have and move fields in any shapes.
Once again without “Twitter” or a “Company Telephone”:
NOTES:
‘Keep with’ functionalities assume the X, Y and reference point (alignment) of the fields they are replacing. So if your X of field A is different to field B then when one field replaces another it will assume the target’s X coordinate.
Labels should be set as ‘Attached’ – where X (in a column) is same across all fields and the label is added at the beginning of text. This will ensure that any keep with will move properly because XY coordinates of the field are becoming coordinates of the label (in left aligned fields that is).
Groups can also be part of a move operation. So in theory, you could have a line of text objects all moving left inside a column of objects all moving down.
