LiveCode Forums.

Hi,
As an absolute LC novice, I have no idea what is the best way to proceed in setting up a basic template that could be cloned and amended for the various documents. Is it just rectangles and fields, locked in position, or would datagrid work better, or some other way of combining tables. I don't want to spend a lot of time barking up the wrong tree with a poor method only to discover later that there was a better way of proceeding. So, any advice would be most welcome !

It’s not entirely clear what you want to do, but if I’ve understood correctly you want to set up print templates for various documents?
If that is the case I’d create a card for each document and just populate the elements as needed.

The data is separated from the card - ie whatever data source you want to use, you would just load that record into the card in question.

For controls that should be the same in each card, i would create these as backgrounds (background groups)
For example if you have a layout that uses a list field or a data grid, and you want these to appear in the same place exactly, with the same data, you can turn these into groups, and groups can then be marked as “backgrounds”.

Any new card created while on a page with backgrounds will have the same background groups, but you can add/remove these from the object menu (if you “delete” they disappear from all cards that have them).

HTH
Stan

Many thanks, Stam.