There were already two topics regarding this, both were already closed though but never resolved. So I will report this again in a hope that this will help to hopefully get this fixed in the future.
When trying to print a Page Design using the print dialogue window within the plugin (which is as far as I know the only way to get a PDF or print a design with multiple records) only the first record is displayed/printed and after that just empty pages for the rest of the records.
This is using the latest self hosted EE or DE version (tested with both) and the latest Firefox version on macOS.
As Safari is not supported at all and Firefox has this limitation the only (really undesirable) option to work with SeaTable are Chromium based browsers
Edit: Just an additional thought. The whole print mechanism seems to be very buggy and handled differently from browser to browser (even among different Chromium browsers). The PDF creation process though seems to work pretty solid. As long as not used from within the plugin but using a button directly from the table. The only problem with this is that it’s impossible to create a PDF for multiple records that way. If there was a way to do that, I would just say good riddance to the printing window at all and just go for a workflow: PDF generation → download → print. But I remember that somewhere there was a mention that this is too taxing on the server side. Anyways, just thinking out loud
I am not entirely sure I understand what you are driving at. Do you want to print multiple records using the “PDF” button? Are you suggesting something like this?
I mean I see the benefit: The generated PDF would look identical on every machine, no matter the operating system or browser used.
@daniel.pan How expensive is PDF printing? If it is too taxing on the server, would it be an option to limit the number of records that can be printed in one go? @pueblo has a point. The topic has already been brought up in several posts (notably most vocaly by himself but also by other users).
I’m not completely sure how to solve this tbh. But I can try to explain the two use-cases I can see.
(the less problematic one). You need to print/pdf the contents of one record at a time like for a transaction, an order, a patient record etc.
(the problematic one). You need to print/pdf multiple records at once like for a storyboard, an outline etc.
In case #1 there are ways to just use a button, generate the PDF and print it independently from browser restrictions using the system print dialogues.
In case #2 though SeaTable is incredibly powerful to create the content for as long as it stays online. To get it offline though (print/pdf) is almost impossible without overcoming many obstacles (browser compatibility, margins, empty pages etc.). The printing route is bugged, the PDF route doesn’t allow for multiple records at once and all other solutions are just convoluted workarounds that most users will probably never be able to master.
I can see why a “create PDF for all records” could be self-destruct mechanism if there are a few thousand records in a table. But something similar would be really useful for us content creators, storyboarders, filmmakers…
It requires a few seconds for generating one PDF page. Generating a PDF for 100 rows at the server side may take 60+ seconds. If a user clicked the button for many times, it is likely block other activities.
Of course, a seperate printing queue for generating long PDFs can be implemented to solve the blocking issue. But it is complex to implement.
Maybe we can add such a feature in a future version.
but also by other users).