Creating New Forms (Module)
Here is a step by step guide how to create a new forms module, and associated form.
- Add a new module to the page
- select type of 'Forms'
- select an action of 'Input Records' (nothing to show yet)
- select the 'Default' view.
- Clicking 'Save' will bring you to the 'Assign Form to Module' page since we can reuse existing forms, click on the 'Create a New Form' Button or select an existing form to assign it to this module.
- If you select an existing form, you may return to the page on which you created a module.
- Clicking 'Create...' brings you to the Form creation page to add basic info about the new form, such as title, etc...
- It's very important you select 'Save to Database' setting since it's ONLY selectable at this point. E.g., if the form is used to collect data, you must save it, but if it's a form to generate an email, you likely won't need to save it.
- When you create the new (empty) form you'll then be taken back to the 'Assign Form to Module' page, select the newly created (empty) form and the selector will turn green. You'll then likely need to navigate back to the original page you added the module.
- When back at the original page you'll note a warning 'This form is blank. Select "Design Form" to add input fields.' since the assigned form is empty, without any controls.
- Click on the 'Design Form' button to bring up the Form Designer
- The Form Designer is fairly intuitive...drag controls out of the list onto the form, onto the location you choose.
- When you drop a new form control onto the form, it'll bring up the edit control dialog, forms are updated immediately when you hit 'Save'
- You can drag controls up and down the form to rearrange them, you can also edit or delete controls. You can drag controls onto the Trash Bin instead of using the 'Delete' button.
- The database Table (behind) the form is automatically updated as you add/remove controls. This means if you 'delete' an existing control, that column of data is deleted from the database Table.
- Be advised any Multi-Record Tabular form setting will be reset since the list of table fields has changed.
- When you are satisfied with your form, click on the 'Exit Form Designer' button at the bottom. This simply takes you back to the module page, it doesn't save or do anything else.
- You should now see your new input form on the page.
Now that you have an 'Input Records' form, you can enter new records, etc... The basic input form give administrators access to any saved data records. You can also create a 'Show' view in another module if you would like to display the records to administrators or customers. Though you need to change some form view restriction settings to make the records viewable. Likewise the Input Records is a public entry, unless you restrict it.
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