Forms Setup |
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To create a Form, go to Maintenance / Advanced Customizations / Forms. This opens the Forms Setup dialog, which lists all current Forms and has the typical functions for Adding, Inserting, Editing, etc. Note that while there are functions to Move Up and Move Down, a Form's position in the list does not affect any functionality other than its order in drop-down Form selection lists that the user sees. This of course may be important to you for organizational purposes.
You can also Export one or more Forms to a text file, or Import Forms. This is primarily for you to import Forms created by the software provider, though it can also be used to transfer Forms between multiple databases.
Forms cannot have duplicate names (or else they could not be uniquely selected from a list). If you make a Copy of a Form, text like "(copy 1)" will be added to the name to make sure it's unique. Of course you can change this to be more appropriate. Duplicate checking for the names is not case-sensitive ("My Form" is considered the same as "my form").
Add the default forms
This special function will add all of the default receipts to the list (plus other Forms like envelopes and labels). The main purpose of this is in case you make some changes and then want to get back the original settings. Note that it will only add defaults that do not already exist, according to the Form names, since duplicate names are not allowed. Thus if you make changes to a default that you want to undo, you need to delete the original first before adding the defaults. A "fresh" copy of any deleted will then be added to the end.
Renaming Forms
If you want to change the name of a Form (for the selection lists), then select the Form in the list and click Edit Form definition. The Edit Form dialog will show the current Form name at the top. Just change the name as needed and Save it.
Rearranging Forms
The order in which the Forms appear in selection lists, for instance in the Transactions dialog, is determined by the order that they appear here in Forms Setup. If you want to move them around, for instance to make the most-used Forms appear at the top (or nearer to the default Form selected in Printing Options), then use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to move one or more selected Forms.
Note: When you use "Copy Form", the new copies will appear at the end of the list. In most cases you will want to move the new copies up to a more appropriate order
Disabling Forms or changing access levels
If you don't want so many Forms in the receipt selection lists, you can disable the ones you don't use. Technically you could also Delete them, but it's better to just disable them in case you want to use them later. To disable a Form, select it in the list and click Edit Form definition. Then in the Edit Form dialog, uncheck the "Enabled" box and then click Save.
Changing the access level for a Form is basically done the same way -- go into Edit Form Definition, and select the desired Access Level.
Changing the number of transactions printed on a page
The space available for transactions on the receipts can vary depending on the number of "Additional sites" (linked reservations) or Receipt #'s (separate transaction sessions), as well as other factors like including credit card information. Each Form is set up with a specific maximum number of transactions that it can print per page (it's not "intelligent" enough to figure that out automatically for each receipt), but this may be too many in some cases, or perhaps you find that it can fit more. To adjust this, select the Form in the list and click Edit Form definition. Then in the Edit Form dialog, change the "Trans rows/page" value and then click Save.
Adding elements to the default formats
Each of the default format entries is set up as an "Add-on" Form, essentially as a blank custom Form on top of the corresponding canned default Form. This means that it still uses internal code to create the receipt Form, instead of using custom Form elements, so that all Forms still work the way they did in previous versions. These "canned" Forms are also a little more flexible than a custom Form could be, and also faster.
However since they are still Form definitions, you can add Form Elements to them. Anything you add will be printed "on top" of the Form selected in the "Add-on" field. Thus you can add a logo image, some extra text, or data fields to otherwise blank areas of a Form. (Technically you could overwrite existing Form information, but this is very tricky.) To do this, just select the Form and Edit it, and add Form Elements as required. Just keep in mind that the position of fields on most canned Forms isn't fixed -- much of the information will move around depending on what information is actually needed for the given reservation or customer.
Making other changes to the default formats -- Importing and changing templates
As mentioned above, the default formats are just set up as "Add-ons" to the canned Forms, which don't allow changes to the canned part of the Form other than additional elements. If you need to make changes to the Form, such as moving, renaming or deleting elements, or adding things to it that won't have a fixed position, then you need to be able to edit the actual Form elements. This isn't possible with the canned Forms, so we've created sample templates that duplicate the canned formats as close as possible. See the section Importing and Editing Sample Forms for details.
Creating custom Forms from scratch
If none of the standard forms or sample forms work for you, then of course you can create a Form from scratch. Just click Add Form or Insert Form, enter the name and basic information and start adding Form elements. See the Editing Forms section for details.
Additional Topics:
Importing and Editing Sample Forms
E-mail Form Customization and HTML E-mail
Advanced Customizations Overview & other topics