Getting Started with SmartForm Assistant 1.1v2
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There are four ways to begin filling in a form using SmartForm Assistant:
- Double-click a form.
- Highlight the SmartForm Assistant application icon, pull down the File
Menu and select the Open option.
- Double-click the application icon. SmartForm Assistant displays the
Open file dialog box. Select the form you want to fill in from this
list.
- If you have a set of forms already open, you can pull down the Edit
menu and select Add Blank Form to create a blank form. Use this method
if you need to fill in multiple copies of the same form in a single
session. Also, use this method to create forms requiring unique form
numbers.
Note: Throughout this quick reference document, Command-key equivalents are
shown in parentheses ( ). You can press these instead of going to menus
to select options.
Filling in a Form
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Here's how to fill in a form:
1) After you have gotten started with SmartForm Assistant, choose the
appropriate form.
2) Once the form set is open, pull down the Edit menu and select Add Blank
Form (Command-A). This adds a blank form to your set of forms.
3) Type in the required information. Use the Tab and Shift-Tab
(backwards tab) to move from field to field. If you have any
difficulties, see the section below, "Using Support Features"
for on-line help.
4) When you complete the form, save the information to your hard disk or
floppy for archiving purposes. You are ready to print your form(s).
Printing a Form
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1) Pull down the File Menu and select Print (Command-P). If a
form requires you to print multiple copies, click the "Print with part
labels" option in the print dialog box.
2) You can print The Current Form, All Forms, or Visible Forms. Make
your selection by using the pop-up menu on the print dialog box.
The choice defaults to Print Current Form.
Using Support Features
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This section explains two categories of Support Features:
- Intelligent Assistance, which deals with things you need to know
immediately.
- General forms Assistance, which contains information needed by more
advanced users.
Intelligent Assistance
SmartForm Assistant provides three types of intelligent assistance. These
are menu items that help you fill in forms quickly and accurately. These
include Format Help, Support window, and Choices window.
- Format Help dialog box. This feature describes the different types of
entry formats. SmartForm Assistant provides Format Help on all forms.
The form designer must provide Support and Choices, which vary among
forms.
Format Help dialog box. The Format Help dialog box provides a concise
explanation of the correct entry formats for each data type. The form
designer can define a field as one of ten data types: text, decimal,
integer, date, time, name, phone, international phone, logical, or
picture. To display the Format Help dialog box, pull down the View menu
and select Format Help... (Command-?) after you open a form.
- Support window. This feature describes the type of information to
enter. The form designer can also provide custom help messages and
custom error messages for each field in a form. These messages apply to
the selected field and appear in the Support window. To display the
Support window, pull down the Windows menu and select Show Support
(Command-H).
- Choices window. This feature lists choices for the selected field.
After selecting or tabbing to a field, you can enter data into it by
typing, by pasting from the Clipboard, or by selecting an option from
the Choices window. As with the Support window's help and error
messages, choices are not built into all forms; the form designer must
provide them. Some forms, or fields in a form, may not have choices
associated with them.
To display the Choices window, pull down the Windows menu and select
Show Choices (Command-Y). You can select items from the
Choices window by:
- Selecting an item in the choice list and then clicking the Select
button.
- Double-clicking an item in the choice list.
- Pressing the Command-key equivalent corresponding to the choice you
want (Command-key equivalents for the first 10 choices are always
Command-1 through Command-9, then Command-0).
General Forms Assistance
Beyond the intelligent assistance provided by Format Help, Support, and
Choices, the following features help ease data entry and provide
information about the form or its data. These include Name Options..., the
Form Info window, the Form Set Info window, and the Auxiliary window.
- The Name Options... dialog box shows prefixes and suffixes (like
Mister and Senior) that help SmartForm Assistant interpret acceptable
entries in a Name field. It also controls how SmartForm Assistant
displays your accepted entry. Some prefixes and suffixes also have
abbreviations (Mr. and Sr., for example) and alternate abbreviations (Mr
and Sr), which you can view in the Name Options dialog box.
To display the Name Options dialog box, pull down the View menu and
select Name Options... The "Built-in" card displays name options for all
forms; the "User-defined" card displays them for a specific form set;
the "Library" card displays a list of name options that you define (for
example, making Research Engineer, Researcher, or R.E. acceptable).
- The Form Info window displays data about the form with which you're
working. The Form Info window displays the Form Name, number, and the
creation and last modified dates for the current form. It also includes
a field into which you can enter comments about the current form. To
display the Form Info window, pull down the Windows menu and select Show
Form Info (Command-T).
- The Form Set Info window, displays data about the current form set.
The Form Set Info window displays the date the Form Set was created and
last modified and information about the Source Form (the form created in
SmartForm Designer). It also includes information about the total
number of forms in the set, number of visible forms, and number of
hidden forms. To display the Form Set Info window, pull down the Windows
menu and select Show Form Set Info (Command-M).
- The Auxiliary window is an extra page, consisting of information
that will not be printed with the rest of the form. The Auxiliary
window contains extra information that SmartForm Assistant does not
print. To display the Auxiliary window, pull down the Windows menu and
select Show Auxiliary (Command-U).
Managing a Form Set
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When you have a number of forms to keep straight -- as with numerous weekly
expense reports in the same file -- you can search through old forms and
manage forms more easily with the controls First Form, Next Form, Previous
Form, and Last Form. These items are in the View Menu. When you want to
view a different form in the set, use these menu items to move through the
form set.
Find Forms...
This is used to find a specific form. To find a form, pull down the View
Menu and select Find Forms... (Command-F) and a blank form will appear.
Determine which field you want to search on and enter the search criteria
into that field. To find a form that was created on 7/25/88, you'd enter
7/25/88 as the search criteria in the date field and then click Find in the
find dialog box. To find a Facilities Work Request form for
reconfiguration of cubicles, you would open the Facilities set of forms,
pull down the View menu and select Find Forms..., and enter "reconfigure
cubes" in the comments field. The program would find the form in which you
entered "reconfigure cubes" in the comments field.
Hide Current Form, Swap Hidden-Visible, or Show All Forms
These menu options are used to manipulate forms in a set after you have
searched for a form(s). Suppose you fill in forms for John Doe and Sally
Smith. There are 10 forms in the set with John's name, and 5 with Sally's
name. Sally has just asked you to print all of her forms. You would pull
down the View Menu, select Find Forms..., enter = Smith and click Find on
the dialog box. You'd now have 5 forms visible and 10 forms hidden. Now
you pull down the File Menu, select print and choose Print Visible Forms
from the pop-up menu.
If you wanted to see all of John's forms, you'd pull down the View Menu and
select Swap Hidden-Visible (Command-J). John's 10 forms would be visible
and Sally's 5 forms would be hidden.
Collect...
The Collect feature lets you take a form that you've already filled out and
collect all similar forms to create a form set. For example, if you
created 15 Vacation Leave forms, you have 15 different files. If you
wanted to examine the one you filled out last week, you'd have to search
through your hard drive and open that file. But, using SmartForm Assistant
1.1v2, you open one of those Vacation Leave forms, pull down the File menu
and select Collect. Select the folder that has the 15 vacation forms in it
and Collect forms into "the current [front-most] set". Watch the dialog
box compare each file and collect the ones that match the type of form that
is open. This gives you a set of 15 vacation forms.
You can also collect forms by launching SmartForm Assistant, pulling down
the File Menu, selecting Collect, choosing the file you want to collect,
and clicking Collect forms into "a new set of forms". The application will
search for all the files that match the chosen form type.
Where to Find More Information
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About SmartForm Assistant 1.1v2