Form Design

Using the Layout Designer, you can create custom forms for all component types and deploy those forms in the Cross-Platform Client or the Web Client. You can quickly and easily add and arrange both default and custom item properties to the form. The Layout Designer supports multi-tabbed forms and standard user interface control components such as radio buttons, check boxes, list boxes, and command buttons.

The following suggestions will aid you in creating useful and usable custom forms:

• Plan your form so that it can be filled out from left to right and top to bottom. Keep users moving forward; do not place a check box at the bottom of the form that requires a change at the top.
• Create clear, concise, instructive labels for the fields and make each label unique. Duplicate labels cause confusion.
• Use access keys, where available, to provide keyboard access to fields. Try to make access keys mnemonic, and be sure each access key on a tab is unique.
• To produce a neat, orderly form, align all of the fields and labels of the form on an invisible grid.
• Create logical groupings for fields that go together. Spacing fields close together makes them appear to be associated; spacing fields farther apart produces the opposite effect.

Before creating custom forms with Layout Designer, verify that the StarFlow Extensions project exists on the server on which the form will be developed and used. Perform the following tasks to design a form:

1. Plan the form.
2. Create the appropriate folder in the StarFlow Extensions project.
3. Launch the Layout Designer and design the form in the form layout area.
4. Save the form in the appropriate project folder in the StarTeam Extensions project.
5. Activate the form.