Adding and Editing Fields

To add a field to a form, click on an Add Field button, then:

• Set the desired field properties as described below.
• If you do not want to put it at the end of the form's public area, use the dropdown menu in the box's title line to position it somewhere else.
• Click on Add Row to create a new row and put the new field in it. Click on Extend Row to put the new field to the right of the field identified in the title line's dropdown menu.

To update or delete a field, click on the field itself.

The Field Name property

This is the label for the field's input area within the form. It is also what will appear in the What to put in dropdown menus on the Make/Output Report page. (In other words, you can include registration and signup fields in reports).

Because a name can be used in multiple signup forms, this field is a dynamic menu in Make Signup Form's Add Field box. In other words, this helps you avoid misspelling a name or accidentally using the same name to mean different things.

The Type-of-Field property

This determines the kind of field that will be placed in the form.

• Text fields can be 1 to 20 lines tall. A user can enter arbitrary text into such a field.
• Date is a 1-line text input field. When used, it will trigger an error message if the person enters a bad date. Pretty much any standard format will be accepted. If year is omitted, the current year is assumed. If it is just 2 digits, 20 is prepended. If month and date are both numeric, the first number is taken to be the month.
• Number and Integer are 1-line text input fields. The first will trigger an error message if the person enters a non-numeric value in the field. The 2nd will trigger an error message if the value is not a whole number: 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on.
• Computed leads to a 1-line text input field and is treated the same as Number — except in the signup form of a Contest activity. In that case, it is an output-only field and signals that the contest is a judged contest.
• Menu will lead to the creation of a dropdown menu. You enter the values that should appear in the menu in the text area at the bottom of the Add/Edit Field box. If you precede one with an asterisk (*), that designates it as the menu's default value.
• URL is a 1-line text input field. If the field is given a value, the field's name will be presented as a link in the form. Similarly the tables displayed by Search and Output Report will present a URL field's value as a link.

Defaulting the Value of a Field

To give a non-Menu field a default value, enter it in the text area at the bottom of the Add/Edit Field box. (As noted above, use *item in this box to set the default of a Menu field).

A form displays its default values when you initiate creation of a signup or registration, and for blank required fields on an Update. Note that a default field value does not affect exiting database records, just the display of the form. You still have to click OK to get the new information into the database.

However if you do need to supplant blanks in many database records at once, you can: do an Export, set the desired defaults in row 1 of the exported file, and then Import it.

The Size properties

Width is used to set the width of the field as it appears in the form, and is specified as a percentage of the width of Person to Signup (in signup forms) and Email Address (in the registration form). In other words, if you specify 100, the new field will have the same width as Person to Signup/Email Address.

You may specify a width from 10 to 300. If you do not fill in a width:

• Text, URL, and Row Header default to 100.
• Date and Menu default to 50.
• Number and Computed default to 25.

For Text fields you can also enter a height: from 1 to 20. If you do not fill in a height, it defaults to 1 line.

Notes:

1. You can put as many fields in a form as you want, but you do need to consider aesthetics. In particular, you do not want the OK button to be past the bottom of the screen. In other words, judicious use of multi-field rows is one way to prevent a form from getting too tall.
2. Because horizontal gaps increase the width of a multi-field row, fields in a multi-field row are made very slightly narrower than specified. But if a row has more than 4 fields and you care about this row being "too wide", you will need to shrink some of its fields by 1 unit yourself.

Field Fill-in Rules

Check the Required box if a field must be filled in when a Signup or Register is done. (Optional fields can be filled in then or when the form is edited).

How to set Self-Signup Can:

• Select Enter It for a "normal" field — namely a field a user can fill in and edit on the self-signup page.
• Select View It if the field's value can be seen by a user, but only be edited by an Admin person.
• Select Enter Until to allow a person to edit the field via PRESTO only until its schedule's Signup/Cancel Deadline.

Notes:

1. You create admin-only fields (i.e. fields that are not shown in the self-signup form) by adding or moving them below the Admin-only Divider row.
2. The Self-Signup Can property is ignored while a field is admin-only.
3. The Enter Until option is for signup forms only. (Note: if your policy for when a field becomes view-only is too complicated for you to use Enter Until, you can implement your policy manually if desired. That is, you can manually change its Self-Signup Can setting from Enter It to View It at the appropriate time).
4. The label of a View It field is grayed in the non-admin form and when an admin is creating a form definition.

Providing Explanatory Text for a Form

Help for the Form as a Whole

Explanatory Rows

To create a row that consists only of explanatory text, click on an Add Explanatory Row button. To edit an explanatory row, click on its ? icon.

Your explanatory text can be plain text, HTML, or blank. If it is plain text, a half-line vertical gap is inserted, then your text below it. If it is HTML, it is inserted into the form without alteration. If it is blank, just the half-line gap is inserted.

Explanatory Text for Regular Rows

To edit the help or in-line explanatory text of a regular row, click on the row's ? icon and fill out the box as desired.

A Row's Help Text

To create or edit help text for a row, select an item in the Help Text for dropdown menu and enter the desired text:

• If you select a field name, your help text will be preceded by a bullet and the field name.
• If you select Row as Whole in a labelled multi-field row, your help text will be preceded by a bullet and the row's label.
• If you select Row as Whole any other time, your help text will be an unbulleted unlabeled paragraph. Thus, you use this sort of help text as a header for this row's help and to visually divide a form's help into sections.

In-line Explanatory Text

You can give a multi-field row a label. (Recall that the label of a single-field row is the field's name).

You can place explanatory text below a row's field(s). If this is a multi-field row, your text will replace the field names that are normally placed below such a row. To make some of your text admin-only, enter ADMIN[the admin-only text]. (So entering just ADMIN[] both suppresses the field names and creates a vertical gap after a row).

(Note: the City & State & Zip row in the Registration Form uses all these features).