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Group Buttons on a Command Bar

Goal​

Put a dividing line between the buttons you added to a form's or view's command bar, so related commands read as a group instead of as one long row.

Prerequisites​

  • A form or view you are editing in its designer.
  • At least two of your own actions on its Actions strip — a separator between nothing and nothing is not shown (see below).

Steps​

  1. Open the form in the Form Designer, or the view in the View Designer.
  2. Find the Actions strip under the canvas.
  3. Select Add separator. A narrow chip appears at the end of the strip, showing the line it will draw.
  4. Drag it between the two buttons you want to separate.
  5. Save the form or view.

What a separator is​

A line, and nothing else. It has no label, no icon, and no script, and clicking it does nothing — so the designer does not offer you those boxes when a separator is selected. It exists only to say "these commands go together, and those are something else".

It also only exists in the bar. You cannot move one into the More menu (…), because that menu is a vertical list of commands and a vertical line between them would divide nothing.

Separators that divide nothing are not drawn​

Three cases disappear on their own:

  • one at the start of the bar;
  • one at the end;
  • the second of two next to each other.

This is not the designer overruling you. Which commands appear depends on who is looking: somebody who may not delete records never sees Delete, so a separator you placed between Delete and the next button can find itself at the end of their bar, with nothing after it — a stray line hanging off the last button. You cannot predict that when you design the form; the bar can when it draws itself.

So a separator you placed correctly may still not appear for every user. That is the feature working.

Where your buttons sit​

Your commands start after the built-in ones (Save, Save & Close, Delete, Refresh…), so a separator you add before your first button sits between the platform's commands and yours — usually exactly where you want one, and the one place a "leading" separator is drawn, because there is something before it.

That is where they start. The strip is one list holding both kinds, and you can drag any chip anywhere in it — see Rename, Hide or Reorder a Command. A separator moves like anything else, and divides whatever ends up on either side of it.

Troubleshooting​

  • My separator does not show up. — almost always one of the three cases above. Check what is next to it in the strip once the permission-gated commands are taken out.
  • I cannot find Placement or Edit code for it. — a separator has neither. Those boxes are hidden rather than greyed out, because greyed out would suggest they might one day apply.
  • I want a separator in the More menu. — not possible, and deliberately so. Split your commands between the bar and the menu instead.