Designing forms
Forms, like pages, display information. Everything that can be done with a page can be done with a form. What sets forms apart from pages is that forms can be used to collect information. A form provides the structure for creating and displaying documents, and documents are the design elements that store data in the database. When a user fills out the information in a form and saves it, the information is saved as a document. When a user opens the document, the document uses the form as a template to provide the structure for displaying the data.
Here are the basic steps involved in designing a form:
- Decide on the purpose and type of form you need. To do so, consider:
- The kind of information you want to collect and which elements you need.
- How and where the resulting documents, which contain and display the collected information, appear.
- Create the form.
- Add elements to the form.
- Name the form.
- Assign its properties.
- Preview and test the form in the browsers users access it with.
NOTE: Changing a form (for example, by adding a field) will not change documents previously created with that form until they have been edited and saved, either manually or programmatically by an agent. Removing a field from a form does not remove the value of that field from previously created documents. When adding a computed field or field with a default value, it may appear to have been added to the document, because opening the document will show a value in that field, but unless the document is edited and saved, the field will have no value, and no value is displayed in views referencing that field.