Universal Layouts

[Brendan]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to introduce a new features that’s in Tap Forms Pro 1.1 which was just approved for distribution on the Mac and iOS App Stores.

Being able to create custom layouts on iOS and Mac has been a very long requested feature for Tap Forms. Well, it’s finally here. It’s not exactly the same kind of layout engine the Mac has had for years. It’s an all new layout engine written nearly all using Apple’s SwiftUI framework for building cross platform apps. And by cross platform I mean iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

So now you’ll be able to create layouts on iPhone, iPad, and Mac that can be displayed on all your Apple devices. You can also build specific layouts for each device size, although all Universal Layouts will be visible on each device, you’d only want to use the ones that were designed for that specific device size.

The way it works is you create a new layout, give a name to your new layout, then choose how many columns across you want your fields to be displayed in. Then you can start adding fields to your layout or click the Add Default Items button on the Mac version. Or just create the new layout on iOS and Tap Forms Pro will put all your fields on your layout for you.

Tap Forms Pro will display your fields in a sort of grid like fashion. Not like a spreadsheet, but with your fields laid out in columns and rows with labels above each field. You can specify if you want your fields to span across some or all the columns or just be restricted to a single column. Tap Forms will automatically shuffle your fields around to make room for the updated size.

I plan on making a video soon to demonstrate Universal Layouts. I’ve updated the online documentation with a bit about it, but still have to upload screenshots.

It works pretty well right now, but there’s more on the way as the next update will let you group fields together into boxes, colour the backgrounds of the boxes, and even choose the font, size, and colour of the label for each of the fields.

So check the App Store for an update to see if you have the 1.1 version yet.

Thanks!

Brendan

• This topic was modified 3 days, 2 hours ago by Brendan.

[timzu]

Good news! Will we be able to specify the default layout for a particular device? Like, use this layout on Mac, use this other one on iPhone, and this other one on iPad. Or will we need to manually switch from the actual “Default Layout” to the new one we create?

[Brendan]

You will need to manually switch to the layout on each form on each device to use the layout you created. But Tap Forms will remember the last layout you selected and it will always present that to you when you view a record in the form.

When you view a record, by default the Default Layout will be displayed. But there’s a new button there you tap on that displays a menu of choices. There will be Default Layout, a list of any universal layouts you’ve created on that or any other devices for that form, an Add Layout button, an Edit Layout button, and a Settings button. The Settings button will be for letting you edit the layout name, choose the columns across you want the fields to be laid you in, and whether the cells in the grid should be top aligned or bottom aligned.

The Edit Layout button is where the real power is. When you choose that, you’ll see a Layout Fields button on iOS that will let you choose which fields you want to have on the layout and in which order they’ll appear.

But you can also drag and drop fields directly on the screen to position them where you want in the layout. You can also remove fields from the layout by tapping the (x) button. Notice I didn’t say “Delete fields”. You’re not deleting a field from the form, you’re just removing it from the layout. The field and all its data will still be there on the Default Layout and you can tap the Layout Fields button to re-add it to the layout. Or on Mac you can just re-drag it into the layout.

There’s also the layout item properties button (•••) that will display different settings to let you customize that layout item, such as how many columns across it will span, what the colour of the border and fill is, and for radio button and checkbox Pick Lists, how many columns across they should span.

I’m also working on an update to Universal Layouts which will let you group fields together into a box by using Section Heading fields. You’ll be able to specify how many fields below the section heading you want grouped into the box. That’ll be coming in a 1.1.1 update soon.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Brendan]

I have actually been thinking about letting you designate which size device a particular layout is suited for. Right now all Universal Layouts will be visible on all devices. That’s why it’s good to name them for the device they belong to. Or at least include that in the name of the layout. So ya, yo could pick a layout suited for a wide screen on an iPhone and it’ll look bad and spill out all over the place. But it’s also more than just what device. Because the Tap Forms Pro app can be squished down to basically the size of an iPhone but running on the iPad. So just being able to specify what kind of device the layout is targeted for would not be good enough. You’d need to specify what Apple calls the device trait. Either compact or regular size. Regular size is basically the large iPad screen area. Compact size is either iPhone or a narrow iPad screen that basically behaves like an iPhone.

I’m currently working on letting you customize the fonts used for the field titles on the Universal Layout and there’s so many different scenarios to have to deal with. On iPad there’s more room, so the font inspector panel can be displayed as a popover in regular mode, must be displayed as a full screen selection view on compact mode iPad and iPhones. But on Mac it can be displayed as a horizontal toolbar with menus to select the font, style, size, and colour.

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