The Palette for the Form Designer

To create a form, you need to add parameters to a user task from the existing process data fields.

Right-clicking the user task, and selecting Forms > Open, opens the relevant form. You can modify the form by adding or moving panes and controls using the tools on the palette.

Tip: To add a pane or control, click the tool on the palette for a specific object, position your mouse pointer in the appropriate location on the Form Designer, and click to place the object on the form. (To move a pane or control already on the form, use either the drag-and-drop or cut-and-paste techniques.)

When you hover the mouse over the icons in the palette, a pop-up tool tip describes the tool indicated by the mouse point. The palette contains tools as described in the table Form Designer Palette.

Form Designer Palette

Palette Item Description
  Select Allows you to select objects.
  Marquee Allows you to select several objects by drawing a box around them.
Vertical Pane Adds a Vertical Pane , whose children are arranged vertically.
Horizontal Pane Adds a Horizontal Pane , whose children are arranged horizontally.
Tabbed Pane Adds a Tabbed Pane , whose sub-panes are represented as clickable tabs.
Message Pane Adds a Message Pane for displaying error messages.
Record Pane Adds a Record Pane to edit a list of complex objects, one record at a time.
Grid Pane Adds a Grid Pane to work with list of complex objects.
Embedded Form Allows you to embed another form within the parent form.
Text Adds a Text control for typing a single line of text.
Text Area Adds a Textarea control for typing multiple lines of text.
CheckBox Adds a Checkbox control for making a binary (yes or no) choice.
Date Adds a Date control for specifying or picking a calendar date.
Time Adds a Time control for specifying or picking a time.
Date-Time Adds a Date-Time control for specifying or picking a calendar date and time.
Hyperlink Adds a Hyperlink control that renders a clickable hyperlink.
Image Adds an Image control that renders an image.
Label Adds a Label control that renders a non-editable label.
Optionlist Adds an Optionlist control for picking from a list of options.
  Pass-through Adds a Pass-through control that renders HTML markup.
  Radiogroup Adds a Radiogroup control for picking one of a set of mutually exclusive options.
Button Adds a Button control to the form.
  Cancel Button Adds a Cancel Button for discarding the changes and closing the form.
Submit Button Adds a Submit Button for submitting the changes and closing the form.
Close Button Adds a Close Button for applying the changes and closing the form.

The Palette View

To expand the palette, hover the button over Palette to the right of the Form Designer. To add a pane or a control on the form, click the appropriate button. After adding the controls, the palette collapses to its original state automatically.

Another way to keep the palette from taking up extra space in the Form Designer is to use the Palette view, which opens the palette as an ordinary Eclipse view. When doing this, the Palette view appears by default as a tab along with the Properties view and Problems tabs, but it can be dragged to other locations. The Palette view is then shared between all open graphical editor instances, hiding local fly-out palettes in any open graphical editors.

Open the Palette view by clicking Window > Show View > Palette. If you close the Palette view (by clicking its close box), the fly-out palette returns for the graphical editor instances where it was previously displayed.

The arrow now points rightward. When expanded by this method, the palette remains visible (as the Palette view) until the arrow is clicked again.