Hidden Fields Warnings

A  warning indicator appears in various locations to warn the user that a daily Lesson Plan has hidden fields.

What are Hidden Fields?

A hidden field is a lesson plan field that contains data - text - but is not displayed by the lesson plan's current Template.  That is, the field is hidden.

Why Would a Field be Hidden?

A field can become hidden if the lesson plan Template tied to the Lesson Plan 'hides' a field.   This can happen in the following way:

1. if the lesson plan Template tied to the Lesson Plan is changed - a new Template is selected by the user.
2. If the Lesson Plan is copied into a Lesson Book and the new Lesson Book's Template did not match the old Template used for the Lesson Plan.
3. A Lesson Plan is copied from year to year and similarly, the new Template is different from the old Template.

Changes have recently been made that make Hidden Field much easier to prevent - but many lesson plans can be out there which contain hidden information.

Identifying Hidden Fields

Lesson Plans with Hidden Fields can now be easily identified on the following screens:

1. On the Lesson Planner->Calendar screen in the "Calendar by Book" mode.    
2. In this mode, the new appears when a Lesson Plan contains hidden fields:
3. On the Lesson Planner->Lesson Books->Lesson Plans screen.  On this screen, the new warning indicator appears next to or immediately below the name of the Lesson Plan:
   
4. Finally, on the "Edit Lesson Plan" screen, the warning appears on a new button:When the "View Hidden Fields with Data" button is clicked, a popup is displayed:
   The top area of this popup lists the hidden field and displays the text in each field. You can copy and paste the information from here into a visible field.
   The bottom area of the popup lists "Templates which would display all fields with data for this lesson" - That is, all Templates available to the current user that would - if plugged into the Lesson - show all fields that contain any data (i.e. text) for this lesson plan. You can switch the Template to one of the listed ones to view all of the fields.
   Finally, there is a "Remove Hidden Data" button. This lets you 'clean up' by deleting the hidden information. But be forewarned: this will permanently remove the missing information and you will not be able to get it back.

Fixing Hidden Fields

You have three options when trying to fix the Hidden Field problem:

1. Change the Lesson Plan Template to one that will display all of the fields that contain data.
2. Copy and paste the data from the Hidden Fields to a visible field.
3. Remove the Hidden Field's data.

All three of these things are done from the "Edit Lesson Plan" screen.

As described above, if there are Hidden Fields in a Lesson Plan, a  button appears.    

If you wish to copy and paste Hidden Field data to a visible field, or, if you wish to simply delete the Hidden Field data, click this button.  

It brings up the popup shown both above and below:

Copying Hidden Data

The "Fields with data that are not displayed in this lesson" popup, shown above, lists every field that is hidden and shows the text in the field.  

To copy it to visible field, simply copy it out of the popup and paste it into one of the visible fields.

Remove the Hidden Field Data

The Hidden Field data can be removed - do this either because you no longer want it or because you have already copied it to a visible field.  

To remove the hidden data, simply click the "Remove Hidden Data" button.   Once removed, the data cannot be recovered.

Change the Lesson Plan Template to One that Shows All Fields with Data

The "Fields with data that are not displayed in this lesson" popup will list Templates available to you that will show all of the fields in the Lesson Plan that contain data.  

To change the Lesson Plan's Template to one of these, locate the "" control near the top of the "Edit Lesson Plan" screen.  

Select a new Template, then click .

The  icon will display all of the fields in the selected Lesson Plan Template.