Form Page Layout

Page layouts

The following diagram shows the basic layout of an Ebase page. The area in white is the Ebase form. The areas in green are JSPs and more details on these can be found in customizing presentation - JSPs are typically used to enhance the presentation e.g. display corporate branding, page tracking displays etc. Each group of fields is presented in a table to maintain vertical alignment and this is also the case for fields which are not grouped, the only difference being that non-grouped fields cannot be associated with any of the group texts i.e. header, information or trailer texts. (See Field Groups for more information)

In addition to the basic layout shown above, Ebase supports a two column display as shown below. With this layout, each column contains tables consisting of groups of fields. It is also possible to horizontally align two groups in opposite columns to produce an 'old and new' type of display.

This layout is very flexible and allows the column widths to be varied and also supports the mixture of a two column and a single column display on the same page:

Form texts

All texts can be entered in multiple languages, can be of any length, and are optional i.e. they can be omitted. In addition all fonts, font sizes, colours, use of bold, italics, underline can be customized using a presentation template. (See Working with Presentation Templates for more information)

Here is a description of the individual texts:

The form header is typically a one-line description of the form. This text is displayed at the top of each page and is also used for the window title. If present, it will also contain small page navigation buttons on the right-hand side. These help the user page backwards and forwards without the need to scroll to the bottom of the page.

The page header is typically a one line description of this page.

The page information text provides an area where the Ebase user can place general descriptive information about the page. This can be as long or short as is required.

The fields-on-page can optionally be placed into field groups (there are 2 field groups in the first example above). Groups allow visual separation of related fields from other fields on the same page. Each group can have 3 texts associated with it :

field group header is typically a one-line description of the group e.g. Address.

field group information text provides the opportunity to insert a description of the group, or possibly instructions for the end-user on how to complete the fields.

field group trailer text is similar to the information text but is placed at the end of the group.

page trailer text is also similar to page information text but appears at the bottom of the page.

Fields on the same line

field label, field element, and field information are by default presented in a tabular format to achieve alignment and visual tidiness - each line in the table representing a single field. Field label is normally a description of the field, and field information provides the opportunity to provide some additional information - help text - about the field. This basic line layout can be customized in a number of ways:

· the relative widths of the 3 elements field label, field element, and field information can be changed

· the field information can be presented in 3 different ways - to the right of the field element (as shown above), as a button which then launches a pop-up window containing the text, or underneath the field element more than one field can be included in a line as shown in this example

Note that if more than one field appears on a line, the field information text displayed ('some additional comment' in the example above) is the text for the first field on the line. Information texts for other fields on the same line are not displayed.