Form Designer - Overview

The Form Designer is where you view and edit form elements and their properties, and make changes to the layout. In addition to a menu bar, the Form Designer has three main areas:

• Form Outline - in the upper left corner displays the contents of your form in a hierarchical view
• Form Workspace - the large panel to the right gives you a live interactive preview of your form
• Form Properties / Field Properties - in the lower left corner has three panels where you define properties for General Settings, Validation, and Layout & Alignment

On This Page

• Form Workspace
• Form Outline
• Field Properties
• Form Properties
• Unpinning the Property Panel
• Resizing the Form Workspace

Form Workspace

The Form Workspace is the largest panel in the Form Designer. As you add fields and make changes, you can see the immediate effects of those changes in the workspace. If you're working with a multi-page form, you'll see a tab for each page. In the workspace you can:

• Click to select form elements

• Double click to edit field labels, headers, and footer text

• Right click anywhere to insert new form elements and/or delete elements

Some changes made to your form -- such as validation -- cannot be viewed in the form workspace, so you’ll need to preview your form to see these changes.

Form Outline

The Form Outline panel in the upper left corner of the Form Designer displays all the elements of your form. Click on any item to highlight it in the Form Workspace to the right and edit its properties in the Form Properties panel in the lower left corner. Right click to insert a form element or drag and drop to re-arrange elements on your form.

The top item in the Form Outline Panel is the name of the form. If you click it, the Property Panel lists these global properties. You can expand each group to view general, validation, or layout & alignment properties for the form.

Field Properties

When you click an element in the Form Outline Panel, all of its properties display in the lower left corner. Click the name of the panel or the + to move to that panel and see that group of properties.

• Field General Settings
• Field Validation Settings
• Field Layout & Alignment  Settings
• Field Style OverRide Setting

Form Properties

When you click the name of your form in the Form Outline Panel, the Form Properties panels displays in the lower left corner. Click the name of the panel or the + to move to that panel and see that group of properties.

• General Form Properties
• Form Properties
• Form Validation Settings
• Form Layout & Alignment Properties

Click on any element to highlight it in the Form Workspace and edit its properties in the Form Element Property Panel.

Unpinning the Property Panel

You can unpin the Properties panel and have it float by clicking the pin icon in its upper right corner. You can then move it around the desktop, resize it, and see more properties at once. Unpinning the Propeties panel also let you see more of the Form Outline Panel.

Click the pin icon again to dock it in place.

Resizing the Form Workspace

Click and drag the area between the Form Workspace and the panels at the left to show more of your form. Double-click that area to hide the panels at the left.

To bring them back, click the point at the left edge of your workspace, halfway up your screen, where your mouse becomes a hand.