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I have a view with multiple columns that's showing documents with response documents underneath.

I have a field on the parent document that is long that i'm putting in the first column.

I've got another column that has a field specific to my response document.

I want to have the first column be very small (width), so the responses aren't indented by much.

The problem is that the parent document's field gets cut off.

How can i allow the parent property column to overrun into the child property column?

This would be similar to a categorised view, except that the 'category' is a parent document.

I'd like a solution where i can get a child's property to overrun into a sub-child's property too, i.e. Document->Response->Response of response

George Duckett
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There are two ways to set up a parent/child relationship between the rows in a NotesView. First works with one or more types of documents where you take a flat view of documents, pick a column to group by, and set its type to Categorized. The Category row then shows up above the entries that have their field set to the category value.

The second way is to have two types of documents using the built in document / response (and optionally response to response) relationship. In your form selection criteria, you make sure you select all the documents you want, and then tack on the descendants. In the view settings you need to select "Show response documents in a hierarchy". Then the parent documents will show above all their child documents.

I think you're trying to use the second method, but it seems like something is missing. When it is set up, the parent row can show any number of columns, and usually the child row shows only one (see the design of the built-in discussion databases). To designate a column to be for responses, select the Show Responses Only option in the column properties. Otherwise the column will appear for just the parent document.

To get what you want to do you should just need a couple of columns. The first one would be for the response documents and can be very narrow, but will automatically stretch across the whole window. The second would be for the parent document. Lastly you can select the "Extend last column to window width" option so the parent column fills the screen, or just stretch the parent's column wide enough to fit everything. You can even set the view properties to allow that column to show on multiple lines (up to 9) if it doesn't fit on one.

Hopefully this fills in any gaps. If I missed something please let me know in the comments.

Ken Pespisa
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  • Thanks, this has helped, however i've got a 3 tiered hierarchy. The 2nd method you described works for the parent, and its response, however, i can't seem to get the column with the response of response field to show up. I've tried reording columns, and playing with the 'Show response documents in a hierarchy' flag. – George Duckett Sep 22 '11 at 14:18
  • Is the row not showing up for the response to response, or is it just that it shows up and gets cutoff? There should probably be only one column marked "Show Responses Only" and it handles the output for all responses *and* responses-to-responses. – Ken Pespisa Sep 22 '11 at 14:45
  • The row is there, but it's blank, presumably because the response to response doc doesn't have the same field as the response doc. Not sure how to get around this. – George Duckett Sep 22 '11 at 14:47
  • Ahh, ok, that we can fix :) The magic happens within the column formula for that response-only column. First you'll need to look at the document properties of that blank row, and find the field containing the data you wish to display (use File > Document > Properties, or ALT+ENTER while the row is selected). Then it is a matter of adding a conditional formula: `@If(@IsAvailable(field_from_response_doc); field_from_response_doc; field_from_response-to-response_doc)` Simple example but you get the gist. – Ken Pespisa Sep 22 '11 at 15:08