Form Designer: Introduction

Jump to a section: [System Requirements] [Launching Form Designer] [The Layout] [Elements] [Container Elements] [Copy, Paste, Delete and Undo] [Adding More Pages] [File and View Menu]

Introduction

The form designer is used to create Visit Forms and Case Forms. When you first open the Form Designer, it can be a little overwhelming at first. Don’t panic. Designing forms is not difficult if you have some basic computer knowledge and are willing to work through the help articles. This is not to say that form design is quick and easy. The learning curve is fairly steep, so expect that initially, it will take a substantial amount of time for you to become familiar with the form designer tool and the features that it offers. Even after you are comfortable with the system, forms can be tedious to create. If you find that you need extra help, we can schedule an online training session (ask support about rates). Additionally, if you find you don’t have the time or inclination to design your own forms, feel free to contact us, and we can give you a quote on a custom form. With all that said, the very first thing you need to decide when designing a form is to know what type of form you wish to create.

The two types are as follows:

Case Forms – These forms may be attached to a patient case. They could include Face Sheets, Intake forms, outcome studies, etc. These forms do not have any knowledge of a particular visit but are attached to a case as a whole.

Visit Forms – These forms are typically used for Therapist Documentation. These forms are linked to a specific visit for a case. This allows the form to pull information not only for the case but for the visit as well. If you are wanting to design Therapist Documentation, i.e., Visit Forms, then we strongly recommend that you be familiar with what our stock Therapist Forms are and their functionality before attempting to develop your own. Before starting here you should have a good idea of the concepts of the “Flow Forward” and “Rollup”. If these are not familiar concepts to you then review this article Form Designer: Form Functions.

System Requirements

The basic system requirements required to use Fusion Enterprise hold true for Form Designer. However, we do recommend that you use a computer monitor with at least a 1280x1024 screen resolution. Forms may be designed at 1024x768, but you will have an easier time of it at higher resolutions.

 

Launching Form Designer

While the Form Designer is a standalone program, the easiest way to run it is by selecting Launch Form Designer from the Administration menu in Fusion Enterprise or double-clicking on the v4 Form Designer icon on your desktop. 

NOTE: If you do not have this icon on your desktop, reach out to Support. 

After opening the  Form Designer you will be presented with the following dialog:

From this dialog, you may either Open an Existing Form by clicking on the button in the lower-left corner (recommended), or you may enter in the Category, Name, Description and then select the type of form you wish to design. We recommend the first method as it will save a tremendous amount of time not to start from scratch. 

Category	The category of the form. This will be used in Fusion Enterprise to categorize the form. For example ‘Evaluation’.
Name	The actual name of the form. For example ‘Spine Evaluation’.
Description	The description gives the user more information about the form. For example, if you have multiple spine evaluations you could provide a more detailed description to help the user determine which form they wish to use.

WARNING: The form Type can not be changed once it has been selected, so it is vital the correct Type is chosen from the beginning.

If you are opening an existing form, press the Open Existing, button and find the form you wish to open.

See Form Designer: Getting Started with Editing Forms for more information.

The Layout

When the form designer first opens for a new form, you are presented with a screen that looks as follows:

The screen is divided into 3 sections. The Toolbox on the left, the Form you are working on in the middle, and the Properties on the right side.

NOTE: It is possible to take the Properties window on the right and dock it with the Toolbox on the left. This is helpful if you are using a monitor with less than optimal resolution.
To accomplish this, click and drag the title bar of the properties window and drop it on top of the Toolbox title bar. This will cause the window on the right to have two tabs at the bottom.

Note that there are some other configurations possible, such as a split right window and floating Toolboxes and Properties windows, so feel free to use whatever works for you.

Elements

The items in the Toolbox are referred to as elements. These elements can be Labels, Check Boxes, Drop Down Lists, etc, but each element is its own distinct object. Make sure you have the Toolbox selected and not the AutoFill tab. 

When you select an element from the Toolbox your cursor will turn into a + sign so that you may place the element on the form where your cursor is by clicking. 

You will notice that when an element is selected on the form it has what we call a Bounding Box around it. This is the dotted box around it with sizing circles. You can click and drag any of these circles to change the size of the element box.

If you place your cursor in the middle of the element you will get the ‘Move Cursor’. If you click and drag, you can now move the element to where you wish.

When an element is selected the Properties for that element are displayed in the Properties box. The Properties for the element control the appearance of the element. The properties for the element may not be the same as another element, as each element is intended for a specific use. 

Ordering Elements

An element can be over the top of another element. We call this order the Z-Order. By default, anytime you add an element it goes on top. There are times when you may wish to change the Z-Order, and this may be accomplished by selecting Z-Order -> Send to Back from the Layout Menu.

You will also notice there are several other options in this menu and are defined as follows:

Layout Menu
Show Grid / Snap To Grid	These are not currently active features of the Form Designer.
Align...	Allows you to align multiple elements.
Center...	Centers the selected element Horizontally or Vertically on the page.
Size To...	Makes an element the identical size of another element.
Z Order	Moves the element in front of or behind other elements.
Tab Order	Sets the tab order for the form.

Most of these options are useful only when you have more than one element selected. This can be accomplished by ‘lassoing’ several elements together. Do this by clicking and dragging a selection box around the elements. This results in all elements being selected at once. You may select as many different elements as you would like.

You will notice that one element will have white circles and the others will have black. The element with the white circles is the ‘main’ element. You may change the ‘main’ element by simply clicking on one of the elements with the black circles. The main element is the element that the other elements will be Aligned or Sized to. 

Container Elements

Container elements hold other elements. The big white form page that we have been putting elements on is also a container; it is called the Base Panel. The Group Box element is another example of a container element.

This Group Box in the above example contains 3 measurement blocks. If we move the Group Box around the 3 measurement blocks will move with it as they are ‘in’ the Group Box element.

Some care must be taken when resizing a container. If we resize a container so it is only half as wide as it elements inside it, they will be partially outside the box. When this occurs the element will turn a light pink/purple color as shown below.

As you can see the measurement blocks run off the edge of the Group box and is no longer visible. It is still there but it is hidden. It is important to keep all of the elements visible in a container.

Containers may be nested, meaning you can have containers inside containers. When you place a group box on the main form this is an example of a nested container since the main form is nothing more than a giant panel called Base Panel. Other examples of nested boxes would be the MEDICAL CONDITION/MEDICAL HISTORY box inside the SUBJECTIVE box on our stock evaluations. 

There is a nifty trick to selecting the parent container box. If we select the measurement block and then press the Escape key then the Group box 'OBJECTIVE' would be selected. Each time we press Escape it will go up a level until we get to the Base Panel. This can come in handy when you are trying to select a panel that has elements covering nearly the entire surface.

Copy, Paste, Delete and Undo

These commands are all available under the Edit Menu and all have their own short-cut key.

Edit Menu
Undo	Undoes the last action performed.
Cut	Copies the currently selected element to the clipboard and then deletes it.
Copy	Copies the currently selected element to the clipboard.
Paste	Pastes the element into the currently selected element.
Delete	Deletes the currently selected element(s).

When pasting an element, you need to select the container you wish to paste the element into. For example, if you are copying a label, you would select the label, press Control+C and then you would need to click on the container you want to paste the label into and press Control+V. It might seem like you would be able to drag and drop the copied label into the container you wanted after you had pasted it, but this is not the case. If this were to happen, the designer would think the new label belongs on top of that container. Note that the Base Panel that everything sits on is a container as well.

You may copy and paste between forms but should refrain from copying and pasting between form Types, ie from Case Form to Visit Form. While it may appear to work it may lead to problems in the future.

NOTE: You can have multiple instances of the Form Designer program open at once to assist with copying and pasting between forms, as needed. 

Adding More Pages

If your form is longer than a single page, as many of them are, you may add additional pages by selecting the Base Panel. The Base Panel is the white underlying page that all of the elements rest on.

There are three properties you may modify on the Base Panel - Font, Pages, and UseCSharpFormulas. The Font will change the default font for the entire form, the Pages will change the number of pages on the form. The UseCSharpFormulas controls any Computable labels on the form. For our current stock evaluations, this should be left at 'True'. 

File and View Menu

File Menu
New	Closes the current form and returns you to the New Form Info dialog.
Open	Opens the Open File dialog and allows you to open a form for editing.
Save	Saves the current form.
Save As	This allows you to specify a file name for the form.
Form Info	This allows you to specify the Category, Name, and Description for the form.
Load Logo	This allows you to load a logo into the form designer for use with the Form Logo element.
Validate Tags	Validates all of the tags to ensure they are unique. Non-unique tags are flagged, and the offending elements are selected.
Clear All Tags	Removes ALL tags from ALL elements. Use wisely. You WILL be prompted to ensure that this is in fact what you wish to do.
Exit	Closes the form designer.

View Menu
Properties	If you closed the Properties window this will open it.
Toolbox	If you closed the Toolbox window this will open it.
Form Preview	Opens the form in Preview mode and allows you to test and work with it much like it was in Fusion Enterprise.
Spell Checking	This allows you how to handle spell-checking while in Form Preview mode.

NOTE: The Spell-check will only work for items entered in the text boxes. For example, Default Text. It will not spellcheck any Labels, etc.