Form Layouts - Field Properties
When in the Form Layout Designer for an order form layout, you can get to the Field Properties screen by either double-clicking on a field, or single-clicking on a field and then choosing Properties from the Field pull-down menu at the top.
Text Tab
Text Value - this box is where you can have fixed text that always appears in the field. All of the labels on a form will have text here (e.g. "Bill To", or "Service Description", or "Date"). This box will normally be empty for any field that is a database field since the text that will show on the form will be the value for that field.
There is one type of field that is called Combined Fields where you will have field names inserted into the Text Value box. This is normally used for the client's name and address information since you want the data to all be displayed together in one box instead of in separate fields. When you want to field to be a combined field box, then you must set the field name at the bottom of this tab to be "ORDEREXTRAS.CombinedFields", and then you can click the Combined Field List tab to double-click on different field names that you want to be inserted into the Text Value box.
This is sort of like putting fields into a mail merge document. There are some additional special delimiting characters you can use in the Text Value box for combined fields as well. When you want to show a field and text surrounding it only when that field is not empty, then you surround the field and usually some preceding text with the special left arrow character followed by a percentage sign («%) and a percentage sign followed by the special right arrow character (%»). The special arrow characters can be inserted using the buttons provided on the right of the Text Value box. An example of this would be in the place where phone numbers are listed on the Style1-WorkOrder form. We only wanted the phone numbers that had something entered for them to be listed along with a description of the phone number, so those fields are listed surrounded by those special characters.
Font - Here you can set the font name, size, attributes, and color for the text to be shown in the box.
Field Name Drop-Down box - at the bottom of this Text Tab there is a drop-down box. This is very important as it indicates what field or type of field is being shown in this component. This will either be a field from the database, or one of the ORDEREXTRAS fields. The most common ORDEREXTRAS fields are "ORDEREXTRAS.TextValue" and "ORDEREXTRAS.CombinedFields". There are others like "ORDEREXTRAS.CompanyName", "ORDEREXTRAS.CompanySubtitle", "ORDEREXTRAS.CompanyAddress", and "ORDEREXTRAS.CompanyLogo" that get their values from the entries you made on the General tab of the Company Setup screen (that is, your company name, subtitle, address, etc.). So that means that those values change on the form layout automatically when you enter new values on that Company Setup screen.
Position Tab
The Left, Top, Width, and Height boxes here contain the position information in inches for this field within whatever region it is in. Normally you will not set these values here. Instead you will click and drag the field on the form layout to move it or size it, but if you are needing to line fields up exactly, you can type in values here. The Alignment options allow you to make the text shown in the field box be horizontally to the left, in the center, or to the right of the box, or vertically at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom of the field box. The Inner Margins allow you to say in inches how far the text shown in the box should be from the borders of the box. These are usually 0.
Behavior Tab
Print this field? - Check this box if you want this field to print on your form. If you want the field to show on screen, but just not to print, then leave this box unchecked. This option is often used for PrePrinted form layouts.
Is this field Editable? - Check this box if you want the user to be able to enter a new value for this field when using the form. For most of the database fields, this box will be checked, but for most labels on the form it will be unchecked.
Check before Leave? - Check this box if you want to be reminded to enter something into this field when closing the order form. This means that if the user leaves this field blank, then when the form is closed, a message box will appear reminding them that no value was entered for the field and asking if they are sure they want to close the order form.
Print Blank Conditionally? - From the order form screen, there is an option to Print w/Conditionals Blank. When you choose to print in this fashion, any fields that you have this box checked for will not be printed. This is usually used so that when printing work orders, the totals and dollar amounts will be left blank since the technicians often have to add services and specific pricing when they are at the job site.
Tab Stop? - Check this box if the field is editable so that when you are using the form you can hit the [Tab] key on your keyboard and it will go through the fields you have marked as tab stops. You can ignore the Tab Order field here because you can set the tab order for the entire form in a much easier fashion. See the topic on Form Properties for information on setting the Tab Order.
Editor Type - This box will only be available for Combined Fields and will also usually already be set to an appropriate value, so it can be ignored. If you happen to add a new Combined Field to an order form that you want to be editable, then you will have to choose a value here. For example, if you choose "Contact" here, then that means you want to set the client or contact for the order when this box is clicked, so it will pull up the client search screen when the field is blank and the contact information screen when it isn't.
Display Format - For some database fields (dates and currency), you can change the display format here. See the help for Data Display Formats for more information.
Empty Display Text - This is the text that will display in a field when it has not yet been set to anything
Hot Key - You can assign a hot-key to a field so that when that key combination is pressed it takes you right to this field on the order form. To assign a keystroke, click the Set button here, and then press the desired key combination on the keyboard.
Border and Background Tab
On this tab you can set the properties of the border and background of the field. Under the Border section, you can check the Print? box if you want the selected borders to print, or leave it unchecked if not.
You can also set the color for the border by clicking the Color button and set the thickness (Width) for the border.
With the Left, Right, Top, and Bottom checkboxes you can turn on or off any side of the box.
Under Background, you can set whether or not the box is Transparent, which means that it doesn't matter what the color of the background is because it will never show since it is transparent. Also check whether or not you want the background to print. Usually if the background is not transparent, then you do want it to print or you may run the risk of hiding the text in the box if the font color of the text happens to be white (some fields have a dark background with white text).
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