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Guide to Form Fields

All field types require the following fields:

  • Short Name - Should not contain spaces, underscores or mixed case. Short name is part of the item's Web address
  • Field Label - the name of the field that displays on the form
  • Field Help - Explanatory text that helps the user fill out the field

About the field types

CAPTCHA Field

  • CAPTCHA is short for "completely automated public turing test" to tell computers and humans apart; it is a technique used by a computer to tell if it is interacting with a human or another computer.
  • Use this on your Web form to prevent spambots from using the form to send spam
  • This field must be the LAST field on the form
  • Shortname: security
  • Title: "For security type characters in the box"
  • Field Help: "Characters are case-sensitive. Use capital letters."
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - Select the default option to display the check box already checked
  • Validator - Ignore this

 Checkbox Field

  • A check box will appear next to the field label. Use this for verifications, assurances, certifications.
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - Select the default option to display the check box already checked
  • Validator - Ignore this

Date/Time Field

  • Use this to ask for an exact date and time or a date only
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - the value the field should contain when the form is first displayed
  • Show Time Selection Options - Check this box to include time selection options: hours minutes and am/pm. Left unchecked the field only allows date yyyy/mm/dd displays drop down menus for options
  • How to add a current date stamp field to a Plone Form Folder
    1. Add a date/time field to the form folder
    2. Click in the checkbox next to required
    3. Click in the checkbox next to hidden
    4. In the Default Expression field enter
      python: DateTime().Date()
    5. Click the save button

    The resulting e-mail message or text field will include a date in the form "2011/02/15" which is sortable in everything without having to be interpreted as a date field. Leaving off the ".Date()" part, includes the current hours, minutes, seconds, hundredths of a second, AM/PM, and the time zone of the server.

 

Decimal Number Field

  • Use this to ask for decimal numbers, such as costs, prices, etc.
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - This is the value of the field should contain when the form is first displayed.
  • Minimum Acceptable Value - The field will not accept values less than the number that is entered
  • Maximum Acceptable Value - THe field will not accept values greater than the number that is entered
  • Max Length - The maximum number of characters that are allowed in the field
  • Size - The displayed width of the text-entry box

File Field

  • Use this field to ask for files, such as a MS Office document
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Maximum upload size (Megabytes) - 0 is no limit. This file will be sent as an attachment to the e-mail

 

Image

This is not a form field. An image can be added to the form folder to be used in the form prologue, the form epilogue or rich label field

 

Label Field

  • This field does not allow input. Do not use this field. Use a Rich Label Field instead.

 

Lines Field

  • Do not use this
  • This is a text area without word wrap. It can be used for collecting code and such.

 

Mailer Adapter

  • A form action adapter that will e-mail the form input
  • Default tab entries:
    • Recipent's full name field - enter the full name of the recipient who will receive the e-mail message.
    • Recipient's e-mail address - enter the recipient's e-mail address
  • Addressing tab entries:
    • Leave Extract Recipient From set to None
    • CC Recipients - enter the e-mail addresses of the recipients who should receive a carbon copy
    • BCC Recipients - enter the e-mail addresses of the recipients who should receive a blind carbon copy
  • Message tab:
    • The message page is used to add text to the e-mail message that will accompany the form results that are sent to the recipient.
    • In the Subject field enter the subject line of the e-mail message. This is used if Extract subject from is set to none or the contents of the field selected is empty
    • In the Extract Subject From field select a form field to use as the mail subject line
    • In the Body (prepended) enter text pre-pended to fields listed in the mail body, such as instructions to the recipient. For example, "Please add this information to the spreadsheet"
    • In the Body (appended) enter text appended to the fields listed in the mail body
  • Template, Encryption and Overrides tabs are NOT used

Multi-Select Field

  • Use this to ask for one or more options from a list of options
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default -The values the field should contain when the form is first displayed. Use one value per line.
  • Rows - The number of rows displayed in a selection
  • Options - Use one line per option
  • Presentation Widget - Use the Check box list for most Multi-Select fields. Selection is not recommended.

Page

  • This is not a form field. A page can be added to the form folder. Links to the page can be added to the form prologue, the form epilogue or rich label field

Password Field

  • Use this field to ask for a password or other sensitive information. Input appears as asterisks.
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - This is the value of the field should contain when the form is first displayed.
  • Max Length - The maximum number of characters that are allowed in the field. Use 0 for no limit
  • Size - The displayed width of the text-entry box

Rich Text Field

  • Do not use this field
  • This presents a text area that allows HTML editing

 

Rich Label Field

  • This field does not allow input but it can be used to insert instructions or other text between fields in the form. This text is in HTML.
  • Label body - The text to display in the form

Ratings Scale Field

  • A Likert form entry for scaled scoring
  • Use this to collect answers on a scale, such as Very Satisfied -> Very Unsatisfied, or, Excellent -> very poor
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Questions - List the items to be scored, or create a list of questions, one per line; these will be the rows of the table
  • Answers - List of scores or possible answers for each of the items or questions; these will be the columns of the table

 

Save Data Adapter

  • Used to collect data that will eventually be added to a spreadsheet (for data analysis or distribution)
  • This will collect the data and present a CSV (comma separated value) file that can be downloaded and viewed in a spreadsheet such as MS Excel.
  • Posting Date/Time under Extra data - save this information with the form input. Ignore the other options under Extra Data
  • Download Format - comma separated or tab-delimited
  • Include Column Names - to download these for the spreadsheet

Selection Field

  • Use this to collect only one option from a list of options
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default -The value of the field should contain when the form is first displayed
  • Options - Use one line per option
  • Presentation Widget -Flexible (radio buttons will be used for 3 or fewer options or a selection list for 4 or more options)
  • Presentation Widget - Selection list (Use this to force a selection list no matter how many options)
  • Presentation Widget - Radio buttons (Use this to force radio group list no matter how many options)

String Field

  • Use this field to collect any answer that can be entered in a single line of text
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - This is the value of the field should contain when the form is first displayed.
  • Max Length - The maximum number of characters that are allowed in the field. Use 0 for no limit
  • Size - The displayed width of the text-entry box
  • Validator - Checks field input against simple text patterns. Validators can be an E-mail address (checks the pattern only, does not verify existence of mailbox), a well-formed URL, a valid US phone number, a valid international phone number, and a valid zip code. With a validator selected an incorrect input will result in an error.

 

Text Field

  • Use this to collect longer free-entry text, such as a narrative. All text is returned in the results as a single paragraph.
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - This is the value of the field should contain when the form is first displayed.
  • Rows - The height of the text box, in lines
  • Max Length - The maximum number of characters that are allowed in the field. Use 0 for no limit

 

 

Thanks Page

  • Thanks Prologue - text that will displayed above the selected field responses
  • Thanks Epilogue - text that will displayed below the selected field responses
  • Fields tab
  • Show All Fields - checked to display responses for all fields. The choices in the Show Responses will be ignored.
  • Show Responses -  uncheck Show All Fields and pick the fields that should be displayed on the Thank You page
  • Include Empties - checked to display field titles for fields that receive no input
 

Whole Number Field

  • Use this to ask for whole numbers, such as counts
  • Required- Check this box to make this field required. This places a required marker next to the label and makes the field required
  • Hidden - Ignore this
  • Default - This is the value of the field should contain when the form is first displayed.
  • Minimum Acceptable Value - The field will not accept values less than the number that is entered
  • Maximum Acceptable Value - The field will not accept values greater than the number that is entered
  • Max Length - The maximum number of characters that are allowed in the field
  • Size - The displayed width of the text-entry box

 


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Webmaster — last modified Apr 11, 2011 02:59 PM