Managing form controls

The Form controls application allows you to view the catalog of available form controls. Click New form control to register custom form controls.

When you edit () a form control, the following properties are available on the General tab:

Display name

Sets the name of the form control used in the administration interface, for example when selecting form controls in the field editor.

Code name

Serves as a unique identifier of the form control (for example in the API).

Type

Assigns the form control to a category. The type can be used to filter form controls.

File name

Contains the relative path to the .ascx file that implements the form control.

Example: ~/CMSFormControls/Basic/TextBoxControl.ascx

Inherited from

Only available for inherited form controls.

Displays the name of the parent form control. Replaces the File name (inherited controls use the same source file as their parent).

Description

A text description of the control or comments for other administrators.

High priority

When selecting a form control in the field editor, controls with high priority appear at the top of the list and are highlighted.

Additionally, only high priority form controls are included among the form controls offered in the Form builder.

Only enable this option for form controls that are most commonly used.

Control scope

Use the properties in the Use control for section to choose the field types for which the form control is available. Possible attribute types for fields include standard data types (Text, Long text, Decimal, Integer, Long integer, Boolean, Date-time), as well as several other options:

Unique identifier (GUID)

Fields that store 32‑character strings used as globally unique identifiers for objects.

File

Fields that provide file management.

Document attachments

Fields that allow the management of document attachments.

Visibility

For form controls that modify the visibility options of other fields.

See Allowing users to change the information they share for more details.

The Show control in determines in which types of forms the control can be used:

Document types

Allows use in document type fields, which you can edit in Document types -> edit document type -> Fields. The editing forms are displayed when editing documents on the Form tab in the Pages application.

Forms

Allows the control to be used for the fields of forms, which you can edit in the Forms application. If you wish to make the form control available in the Form builder, you need to enable the High priority flag.

If you allow a form control for forms, you also need to enter the following default values:

  • Default data type - the data type of the field used by default when a user chooses to create a new field of this type.
  • Column size - only applies to the Text data type. Sets the maximum size of the database column used to store the field, which also limits number of characters that may be entered into the field.

Custom tables

Allows the control in custom table fields, which you can edit in Custom tables -> edit custom table -> Fields. The corresponding data editing form is displayed in the Custom table data application.

System tables

Allows use in the fields of system objects. You can edit the fields in Modules -> Edit module -> Classes -> Edit class -> Fields. The editing forms of system objects are located in various sections of the administration interface or on the live site.

Reports

Allows the control for the user interface of report parameters, which you can define in Reporting -> edit a report -> Parameters. The reporting parameter form is displayed when viewing reports in the administration interface or on the live site.

Controls and web parts

Allows the control to be used for the properties of web parts and widgets, as defined in the Web parts or Widgets applications. This editing form provides the configuration dialog of individual web parts or widget instances.

Defining form control parameters

On the Properties tab of the form control editing interface, you can define parameters. See Defining form control parameters for further information.

Previewing form controls

When editing form controls, you can use the View tab to check the appearance of the control in a sample 1-field form.