Using the Form Browser

The form browser allows normal users to browse and view the available forms in your Zingoolarity instance and allows administrative users to maintain these (create, update and delete).

To invoke the form browser, select Forms from either the main menu or from the home page:

(Zingoolarity form browser)

Searching & Filtering for Forms

The form browser allows you to search and filter for the following form attributes:

• Name
  Enter part of a form name.
• Active
  Select whether you want to see all forms, only active forms or only inactive forms.

Click the Search button to perform the search or click the Clear button to reset the already entered search criteria.

Exporting Forms

If you are an administrative user, you can export the currently filtered list of forms in ZML format to a local file.

Click on the Export button to perform the export.

A file named export_form.txt will be created in your local Downloads directory.

Adding a New Form

To add a new form, click the Add button.
The new form editor screen will appear:

(Zingoolarity form editor screen)

Let us have a look at the different available attributes of a form:

• Name
  The Name of a form represents a short and easy-to-understand label for the form.
• Detail
  The optional Detail of a form is a full text description, optionally formatted in HTML.
  You can enter HTML tags directly (e.g. if you want to underline something in the text, you can include it in tags).
• Active
  The Active toggle of a form can be used to disable (or enable) a form.
  Disabled forms are not available in the various views or drop-down boxes of Zingoolarity.
  Setting a form to inactive can be used as some kind of soft delete.
• ZML
  The ZML of a form contains the definition of the form in ZML format.
  See below for the syntax of the form definition language.

At the bottom of the screen, a couple of buttons are available:

• The Save button will just save your changes (without leaving the editor screen).
• The Save+Back button will do the same but return to the previous screen.
• The Cancel button will just return to the previous screen (without saving).
• The Delete button will request confirmation, will delete the record and then will return to the previous screen.
  Note: Deleting a form is only possible, if the form is not yet used somewhere in Zingoolarity already; if this is the case, you will see an appropriate error message.
• The Log button will show a historical transaction log of the current record (for auditing purposes).

The Form Definition Language in ZML

A form definition in Zingoolarity consists of 1..N field tags, which in turn contain a number of name, prompt, detail, type, format, size and list tags.

Here is the syntax:

[field]
[name]fieldname[/name]
[prompt]Field Name[/prompt]
[detail]Detailed Description[/detail]
[type]banner,line,box,select[/type]
[format]text,number[/format]
[size]32[/size]
[list]abc,def,ghi[/list]
[value]default[/value]
[/field]

For a concrete example, you can have a look at the default "Application Form", which is usually pretty much illustrative.

Editing an Existing Form

To edit an existing form, click the Edit button next to the form in the list shown in the form browser after searching.