ProductsStyleVisionElectronic Forms Design

Altova StyleVision® 2010 is a flexible and powerful application for designing electronic forms based on XML and/or database content.

Electronic forms provide large and small businesses with a highly efficient alternative to paper-based systems, promoting the automation of business processes and streamlining data collection.

StyleVision offers advanced functionality for creating electronic forms based on the same design paradigm used in many desktop publishing applications. An alternative approach to traditional StyleVision stylesheet design, this lets you design your electronic form first using absolute positioning, fixed lines, etc., and concentrate on adding dynamic and/or user-defined content after. You can even upload a blueprint image to serve as a guide in the design process.

Once your design is complete, you can easily distribute the electronic forms to any number of users for manual completion in Altova Authentic® 2010. For more information on how StyleVision works with Authentic, see the Report Builder page.

To create an electronic form in StyleVision, you begin with a new (empty) form-based document. This lets you format your document based on absolute coordinates and provides you with direct control over the precise layout of your electronic form. StyleVision will prompt you to upload an optional blueprint image, which can be useful if you are basing your form on an existing design.

The Initial Document Section menus let you easily specify the overall layout properties of your electronic form section by section with common attributes like header/footer, page orientation, margins, columns, background color, and paper size.

A design template can have multiple sections with any number of different properties. This lets you easily incorporate documentation designs that may have complicated page layout details such as a variable number of columns per page, different margin widths and paper size/orientation, etc.

Once you have defined these properties, you can use the Insert Design Elements toolbar to create layout containers.

Layout containers can:

• Be inserted within document templates or encompass the entire document.
• Inherit the dimensions of the document section or have user-defined dimensions.
• Be assigned any number of style properties (borders, background color, font, etc.).
• Contain a blueprint image to serve as a reference template for the designer.

Layout container characteristics are accessible through the Properties and Styles windows.

Within layout containers, you can easily insert absolutely positioned layout boxes, input fields, lines, check boxes, etc. in your electronic form, using the Styles and Properties windows for further customization.

The positioning of your design elements is easily controlled through drag and drop functionality or, in the case of lines, through specifying locator coordinates in the Properties entry helper window.

Using a blueprint image as the basis for your template is very useful if you already have a partial form design available. Blueprints can be any image file you choose and can be scanned in or simply referenced on your computer. You can then reproduce your design over the blueprint to ensure that you are accurately duplicating the characteristics of the electronic form.

Blueprint images are used as design guides only, and are therefore only visible in design view - not in generated output.

Once you have completed your basic design layout, you can add a XML Schema and/or database structure and source file using the Design Overview window. This will enable the target users of your electronic forms to update and edit these files directly within your design specifications via Altova Authentic.

For more information about how to add source content to your design, visit the Stylesheet Design page.

StyleVision is used to develop the form structure for building reports in Authentic, Altova's WYSIWYG XML and database content editor. The content added by Authentic users can be automatically validated and written to the XML or database sources that you specify in your design. Users are also able to query the source format(s) directly from the form. For more information on how StyleVision works with Authentic, see the Report Builder page.

All of the advanced styling functions described on the Stylesheet Design page are also available for electronic forms.

For HTML electronic forms, StyleVision supports all the design elements found on today’s advanced Web pages, including hyperlinks, CSS styles, JavaScript functions, etc. It even includes a JavaScript editor for defining functions that add dynamic, event-based functionality to your HTML pages. Learn more about support for CSS and support for JavaScript in StyleVision.

Electronic forms designed in StyleVision support advanced functionality such as auto-calculations, business logic validation, and much more. Read more about advanced stylesheet functions.

Take advantage of true electronic forms design for all of your XML and relational database content. Download a free 30-day trial of StyleVision.