Item13828: Formatting issues with %RENDERMETADATA{...}%

I've run into a couple of related issues with the %RENDERMETADATA{...}% macro when trying to define a custom (non-table) display of data:

• Even if I set header and footer to empty and don't include the $actions format parameter in any of the field formats, a hidden metaDataActions span gets added after each meta data instance rendered. A bigger issue is that a closing div tag is also added after the span which breaks up the topic & page layout.
• I tried adding an empty format parameter to make sure that the $action was not sneaking in somewhere, however this resulted in all of the per-field format parameters to be ignored.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 20 Oct 2015

Doing a little more testing, I understand better how %RENDERMETADATA{...}% formatting is intended to work:

• The format parameter is intended to define layout for each METADATA record in it's entirety (all fields) so it makes sense that it overrides any per-field format parameters. Since this is a non-trivia difference between MetaDataPlugin syntax and the otherwise similar FlexFormPlugin syntax, it might be worth noting this explicitly in the docs.
• If the $format parameter is not explicitly defined and the overall default tablular layout is rendered, then the <field>_format is somewhat different than the corresponding FlexFormPlugin parameter. E.g. in MetaDataPlugin, <field>_format much be defined such that it fits into (and doesn't break) the tablular layout. This should be noted in the docs.
• If the format parameter is defined then the the $action block does not get rendered (unless of course it's included in the format definition). If the format parameter is not defined but all the individual fields have field-specific formats defined, then the $action block does get tagged on and can create page layout issues as described above. Perhaps clarification in the docs as described above would prevent a user from trying this.
• A remaining issue that the $action block is specifically defined to work with the default table layout and does not work with other custom layouts, therefore making the $action formatting tag not really useful. In my case, I copied the rendered output of the $action block and then modified it to work with my layout. Not an ideal solution. It would be nice if the $action block was a bit more generically formatted, perhaps just with float-right div which appears when hovering over the individual record block. I'll change the task priority to "enhancement" request as I see the current implementation as "not ideal" if not an outright bug.

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