Form Properties
To display the properties for a form:
Click on the Project tab in the Project Explorer.
Expand the Forms branch in the project tree view.
Click on the name of the relevant form.
The form's properties will be displayed in the Properties Pane.


Enter a name of your choice to refer to this form. By default forms are named Formn, where n is a number starting with 1 for the first form and incremented by one for each new form. We suggest you change the name to something more meaningful which reflects the purpose of the form. You can give a form any name you like, although it can only contain A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and '_' and cannot start with a number. Each form within a project must have a unique name and can't have the same name as any pages within the same project.
In addition, we recommend that you don't give your form a name which corresponds to any reserved words. Reserved words are words which are used internally within Digitise Forms or have a special meaning within JavaScript and generally cannot be used for user-definable items, such as a form name. For example, you should not call a form: submit, onsubmit, history or images, although SubmitCustDetails, OnSubmitForm etc. could be used. For a list of typical reserved words see: https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_reserved.asp.
Note that right-clicking on this field and choosing Reset to default will clear the field.

This is the name of the form as you need to refer to it within any custom JavaScript functions you add to the form. Note that the name spelling here is case-sensitive and must be used in your JavaScript exactly as it appears here.

Allows you to enter a title for the page, which will be displayed in the browser tab when the form is in use. If no title is specified, the form's name will be displayed in the browser tab instead.

- Configuration
- Cookie Warning
- Display
- Error Handling
- Version
Hostfile
Specifies the name of the file which will be loaded first when a user attempts to access your form in their browser. By default, the file is called index.html, and generally this means that the URL used to access the form doesn't need to include the file name. For example the URL might take the form https://<web server name>/<web app name>/<form name> rather than https://<web server name>/<web app name>/<form name>/index.html.
You can change the name, to any other file name your IIS is able to recognise as a default file name.
Allows you to specify a file to use for the Favicon for the form, to be displayed in the browser tab when the form is running to visually identify the form to users. The file can be either in '.ico' or '.png' format. You need to copy the file you want to use into the project's Resources folder, by default:
C:\Users\<username>\Documents\NDL Software\Form Studio\Projects\<project name>\Resources
and then type in the name of the file here in the Favicon File property(without file path).
A default Favicon is supplied and will be used if you don't specify your own file here.
These properties allow you to configure the use and appearance of the built-in Cookie Warning message within your form. All forms use cookies and you should, therefore, provide a warning message to your users to alert them to the use of cookies. The Cookie Warning properties allow you to include or hide the built-in warning in your form and to configure the look and textual content of the message.
Properties which include an edit box can be edited in the normal way. Whilst editing, or if you position your mouse pointer over the edit box, the text box will display scroll bars if the message is too large to display it all in the box and you can enlarge the size of the edit box by clicking and dragging one of the resizing handles, , which will appear in the bottom corners of the edit box.
Policy Style
Allows you to assign a style to the Cookie Policy dialog box, e.g. to change the font, font size and colours of the text displayed in the dialog. Note that only the first style selected from the list of styles will be effective.
Banner Style
Allows you to assign a style to the Cookie Warning message, e.g. to change the font, font size and colours of the message. Note that only the first style selected from the list of styles will be effective.
Banner Position
Select whether you want the built-in Cookie Warning message to be displayed at the top or bottom of the browser window.
Policy Link Text
Specifies the text to be used in the view cookie policy link within the message. At runtime a user can click on the text you specify here to display the cookie policy, which lists the cookies used and their functionality. Default text is supplied.
Accept Link Text
Specifies the text to be used in the accept and dismiss link within the message. At runtime a user can click on the text you specify here to accept the use of cookies and dismiss the warning message. Default text is supplied.
Policy Text
Specifies the text to be displayed in the Cookie Policy dialog above the list of cookies used by the form. Default text is supplied which you can either leave and use as it is or you can change it to provide text of your choice.
Banner Text
Specifies the main text of the warning message. A default message is supplied which you can either leave and use as it is or you can change it to provide a message of your choice.
Enabled
Switches the built-in Cookie Warning message on and off for this form. If this property is selected a message warning users that the form uses cookies will be displayed as part of your form. The form will be displayed until the user accepts and dismisses the form. If this property is not selected, the built-in Cookie Warning message will not be displayed and you should include your own cookie warning message within your form instead.
The remaining properties in this category are only relevant if you have enabled the Cookie Warning message.
Padding
If selected, this property adds padding to the left- and right-hand sides of the page, so that when running the form in a browser, the width of the form will always be less than the width of the browser's display window. If the property is deselected, the form will be displayed at the same width as the browser's display area.
By default, the property is selected.
These properties are used as part of configuring the error messages displayed if a problem occurs when downloading data from a remote datasource or updating a database with input data from the form. For more information about the properties listed below and on displaying error messages in these situations, see the topic: Display Datasource Error Messages.
Allows you to specify a default error handler scripting function to be used to handle errors which occur when attempting to download data or to upload data outside the form submission process. The default function is called onDatasourceError and this function will be used where you don't specify a different function within custom JavaScript. If you are happy just using the default error message, specified in the Default Error Message property above, simply leave this property at it's default value. If you want to enhance the default behaviour you can edit the default function or create your own default error handler function and specify that function's name here instead.
To enter the name of a different function here, you must have the Display Error Messages option above selected and then you will need to copy and paste the name of the function from the custom JavaScript file. Double-click on the Script node under the relevant form tree in the Project Explorer's Project tab to open the Script file in an editor. Select the function name, right-click on it and choose Copy from the menu displayed. Click on the name of the form in the Project Explorer's Project tab to display the form properties in the Properties Pane. Select the current contents in the Default Error Handler option, right-click on it and choose Paste.
Note that when submitting a form, different error messages are available.
For more details about data error handling, refer to the topic: Display Datasource Error Messages.
Display Error Messages
Determines whether error messages are displayed at runtime should there be a problem when attempting to download or upload data. If this option is checked, an error message will be displayed should a problem occur. If this property is not checked, no error message will be displayed.
This option affects data downloads and uploads whether the data transfer is initiated as part of a form submission or not. The error message displayed will depend on how the data transfer is initiated, for example error messages can be specified in the Default Error Message property above, in the Submit button's properties or using custom JavaScript.
For full details see Display Datasource Error Messages.
The default value for this property is: not selected.
- If you configure a customised error message for a particular download, update or submission, and the Display Error Messages property is not currently selected, it will be selected automatically.
Default Error Message
Allows you to specify a default error message to be displayed if an error occurs when attempting to download data or to upload data outside the form submission process. If such an error occurs, the error message specified here will be displayed, providing that the Display Error Messages option below is checked and that you haven't configured an individual error message for the data action within custom JavaScript. The default error message is always used for any data configured to be downloaded when the form loads.
Note that right-clicking on this field and choosing Clear value will reset the value back to the default error message, rather than leave the field blank.
When you are submitting a form, there are different separate error messages available.
For full details see Display Datasource Error Messages.
These properties contain the file names for the template and configuration files used to produce PDF copies of completed forms, if this feature is included in your form. The properties will automatically be filled in when the files are created. We recommend that you don't change the names of these files, but use the default names and locations generated by Form Studio.
Major and Minor Versions
These properties allow you to provide versioning information for the form. You can use the Major Version to indicate major changes and the Minor Version to indicate smaller changes. For example, your first version of the form could have a major version of 1 and a minor version of 1. If you then make some small changes to fix problems or change the functionality, you could increase the minor version each time you publish a new version, first 2 then 3 etc. If you then decide to extend the form and add 2 new pages, you might now increase the major version to 2 and return the minor version to 1 to start again, and so on.
This versioning is internal only, for your own reference.