Kon,

Hi. Thanks for your comments. A good majority of your concerns are addressed in the upcoming release of Dynamic Forms 2.3 (already in development, no official release date yet).

Just to comment since many of them hit right on the nail with your issues.

Create quicker forms -

1. We are implementing a 'Question Wizard' with the next release of Dynamic Forms. This wizard will work similar to the new wizard we implemented for Dynamic Registration where you will be able to select from a number of default field types and easily just check the fields you want added. We hope to actually implement as many as 40 default fields to check from for the most common questions. Everything from First Name to Marrital Status with the most default values already set. From here you could navigate to the wizard and within just a few seconds choose 10 fields to start from etc...

2. We are also implementing some Ajax/Javascript functionality that will automate creating questions in the standard way. This includes the ability to copy fields and also when you enter a new question label it will automatically default the sort order to the next number in the list of questions and default the help text etc... All from javascript/AJax and very quick.

"Secondly, how can we format the the layout of the labels so they appear on top of the fields?" - This will also be in the 2.3 release. From the testing we have been doing this seems to be working great and the development for this piece is already completed so it will for sure be there.

Within the next release you will be able to specify a different stylesheet class for each field label and field if you wish to. For this reason if you wanted just one field to be a different look then another field you can specify it on the quesiton label and it will take overright any stylesheet class you have at the form level.

For your current forms I would suggest maybe using some of the other features to help users out such as question header/footer, example text, etc...Also keep in mind that you can break areas into sections by using Text/HTML fields between groups of questions (or maybe using the Horizontal Ruler field type between questions). Last but not least - A new feature coming in 2.3 will be the ability to select multiple questions that are affected by question events. Right now if you want to hide three questions if a user checked a box you would have to create three seperate question events. With the next release you will be able to specify as many questions to be affected by a question event. So for a form as large as the ones your building I think this would be very useful.

You brought up some very good points and again we hope to release all of these within 2.3. We have two guys working on updates now so I expect that we will have a full release out by the end of next month.


-Chad

Hi Chad,

This is kind of to bump this thread in terms of importance of what the OP was asking for since 2.3 hasn't really addressed those issues.

 

While the wizard is good for smaller forms, it doesn't address the OP's need nor mine. To make this positive criticism, when starting a form, and even after a form has been created, there needs to be a way to bulk create fields. Perhaps this could resemble a grid; Along the left side would be the field names while along the top would be field options. Undertandably, certain fields in this grid would require drilling deeper.

 

As for the wizard, a specific shortcoming of the wizard is made obvious in a form with more than 20 or so fields. The wizard REALLY needs to be have a box to specify how many of that field you'd like. So for instance, if I check "Simple dropdown" I need to be able to specify that I want 10 of them to be created in one shot. Afterwards, I can always go and set the sort order for the questions.

 

Also, I know Ajax is all the buzz. However, I would prefer having the server serve all the options and then have some client-side scripting unmask fields and options, etc. as necessary. Right now, with all of the asynchronous stuff going on, it is feeling heavily stodgy.

 

Like I said in another post, we bought the Enterprise edition with source thinking that it would be beneficial to our contract to build 50+ travel and hospitality sites that we have contracts for. However, if since each form requires multiple calls per field, we are considering abandoning this product. I have more constructive feedback that I would like to give and am even willing to speak in person. Please feel free to reach out to me as it would be a nice reassurance that your vision for the product aligns with Enterprise users' needs.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Shmuel