frevvo Latest - This documentation is for frevvo v10.3. v10.3 is a Cloud Only release. Not for you? Earlier documentation is available too.

Palette Controls

The frevvo palette offers a rich variety of controls that let you create virtually any form. All controls provide functionality as soon as you drop them into your form and can be customized to suit the form you are designing. The purpose of each control is described below.

Palette Controls Chart

Control

Description

Control 

Description

Control

Description

Control 

Description

Selection Controls (View this short video on Selection Controls.)

Input Controls (View this short video on Input Controls.)

Dropdown

A single-select options list displayed in dropdown format.

Text

Allows users to type any text and is intended for short, one-line entries.

Radio

A single-select options list displayed in radio button format.

TextArea

Lets users type any text and is intended for longer, multi-line submissions.

Checkbox

A multi-select options list displayed as checkboxes.

Date

Can be used as a date, time or date plus time control with customizable date and/or time formats, and optional date picker.

Group Controls (View this short video on Group Controls)

Email

Requires a valid email (user@domain format).

Section

A group of controls with a border and label that can be expanded or collapsed; may also be set up as "Signed Section" for authenticated users.

Money

Allows users to enter U.S. currency

Repeat

Allows user to add (or remove) controls to enter additional information as needed.

Phone

Used for entering a phone number, and allows several 10-digit phone number formats.

Tabs

Displays controls in a tab layout.

Quantity

Used for entering quantities or any whole numbers (integers).

Panel

A group of controls without a border or label; often used to create vertical alignment or tab order.

Number

Used for entering decimal numbers. Users may enter any number of digits after the decimal place.

Table

Displays a set of controls in a grid/table layout with ability to add/remove rows as needed.

 

 

Miscellaneous (View this short video on Miscellaneous Controls)

Message

A read-only control that accepts rich text to display information to users. Can also be used as a spacer.

T/F

Use a T/F (Boolean) control for situations where the values will only be Yes or No.

Link

Display a clickable link to users.

Image

Include an image (picture, logo, etc.) in your form.

Trigger

Displays a clickable button that can trigger some event set up in business rules, such as a search.

Submit

Adds a button to your form that, when clicked, will submit the form. (Note that forms include a submit button by default.)

Upload

Allows users to upload files as attachments in your form/workflow.

PageBreak

Adds a page break for phone and/or tablet views.

Signature

An electronic wet signature that allows the user to sign with mouse, trackpad, or touch screen.

ComboBox

A special type of selection control that supports three types of data retrieval: frevvoUsers, frevvoRoles and Web Service. Also supports typeahead and entering values not in the options list.

Form Viewer

Displays a mapped PDF you have uploaded/mapped in Forms Generated for this Form dialogue.

 

 

 

Input Controls

Input controls allow users to enter data (text, dates, numbers, etc.) into your form and automatically prevent them from entering the wrong data types. For example, if users enter letters into a number control, your form will display an error message and form submission is prevented until valid data is supplied. This validation happens automatically; you do not have to do anything special. The purpose of each input control is described below.

To validate the content in each input control, frevvo assigns a default XML schema data type to each control.  The table below shows the default data types for each input control.

Input Control

XML Schema Type

Input Control

XML Schema Type

Text

xsd:string

Date

xsd:date

EMail

types:emailType, an xsd:string restriction pattern defined in  types.xsd.

Money

types:number, an xsd:double restriction defined in types.xsd.

Phone

types:phoneType,  an xsd:string restriction pattern defined in  types.xsd.

Quantity

xsd:integer

Number

types:number, an xsd:double restriction defined in types.xsd.

T/F

xsd:boolean

The explanations below describe the controls generically—before you edit them to impose additional restrictions or define behavior specific to the form you’re creating. Refer to Setting Properties for the information.

Text 

Text controls allow users to type any text and are intended for short, one-line entries.

TextArea

The TextArea control lets users type any text and is intended for longer, multi-line submissions. Scroll bars appear as needed to accommodate the text entered. This control has a # of Rows property that controls the default number of lines visible in the input area. The TextArea control is the only input control that does not have a decorator.

In HTML there is no way to set a maxLength on a TextArea control which is why the TextArea control does not have the maxlength property like the text control. If you need a maxlength, it's best to either choose the text control, or this can be accomplished via a business rule. See the Business Rule for TextArea Max Length

Since users typically enter multi-line text into TextArea controls this can pose a challenge if you want to display that text in an HTML page. For example, you may want to display the entered text in your form's Doc Action display message, in an HTML formatted email, or in on a web page such as your Confluence wiki. The challenge is caused by the fact that line breaks entered into a TextArea control are represented by a single newline character \n while line breaks in an HTML context are represented by the HTML break characters:

<\br>

In order to display the text in an HTML context you need to replace the \n with the HTML break characters. See the business rules chapter TextArea newline vs break for a working example.

Do not select a TextArea field as a Searchable Field if the amount of text stored in the field is greater than 32k.



Date, Time, and Date/Time Controls

The date control allows the user to enter a date, time, or date/time combo. The designer can choose from a variety of formats for each type.

Designers can add a date picker via the Style Properties tab. 

  • The Date control denotes a day and has no dependencies on time zone.

  • The Time control denotes the time of the day and has no dependencies on time zones or offsets. It will not shift based on whether or not Daylight Savings Time is observed in a time zone.

  • The Date/Time control relies on the time zone of the browser. The time portion will be calculated based on the date and whether or not Daylight Savings Time is observed in that time zone. The Date/Time control type is meant to represent a point in time, so certain functions in the Visual Rule Builder (year, month, day, hour, minute) are not available on this control type. 

If the form cannot infer the browser time zone, the Date/Time control will display in UTC.

For example, the time 5:00 PM is entered into a Time control and the date 2/4/2020 plus 5:00 PM into a Date/Time control by a user located in the America/New_York (Eastern Standard Time). When the submission is viewed in the EST time zone, the Time Control displays 5:00 PM. This value will not change. The time portion of the Date/Time control also displays 5:00 PM, because it takes on the timezone of the browser (EST) and it is not further adjusted because Daylight Savings Time is not observed in EST on February 4th.

If the submission is viewed in Tijuana (Pacific Standard Time), the Time Control will display 5:00 PM as it did in EST, since it has no dependency on time zone. However, the Time portion of the Date/Time control will show 2:00 PM because it will be adjusted by the browser time zone to PST. 

Business Rules can be applied to the Date/Time control in all variations. See the Rules Examples chapter containing numerous examples.