Forms in PhixFlow can be built and laid out using drag and drop functionality. If you are new to form building, please see the introductory course: PhixFlow Training - Building Applications.

A more detailed description of drag and drop functionality is given below, but the following videos will introduce you to the basic concepts:

Pinning and unpinning

A key concept behind dragging functionality in forms is pinning and unpinning. Unpinned components are placed into the next available space. Pinned components can be placed anywhere on the form, and you can pin the edges to the edges of the parent component by setting offsets between the top, right, bottom and left edges of the component to those of the parent.

Unpinned components

Unpinned components are placed automatically in the next space available.

For further details about how to position unpinned components within a parent component, see Positioning unpinned components

Pinned components

Pinned components can be dragged to anywhere you want in the form. You can "pin" the edges of the component to its parent component. For further details on how to position pinned components on a form, see Positioning pinned components on forms 

Finding a component's parent

In most cases, a component's parent is fairly obvious - and you can find it by clicking just outside the area of the component. In some cases, it is not obvious. Remember also that with pinned components, you could drag a component from an area, which is its parent, into another area, so that the component now appears in an area that is not actually its parent.

There are a number of ways of determining a component's parent:

• Open the details for the component; at the top of the details, the name of the parent will be shown - to get more details, click on the quick link Parent to open the details for the parent
• Right-click on the component in the form and select Find in Explorer - this gives you a useful way of visually seeing what the parent is, and indeed how other components on the form relate to this component

Dropping components onto forms to create content

New layout components can be added to a form by dragging and dropping any of the following:

When you drag an unpinned component onto a form, it will be automatically assigned to the parent you drop it into (for example, an area), and it will be dropped in the position that you drop it. So if you drop it in the middle of a set of fields inside an area, the fields underneath will be shuffled down to make space for it.

To drop an item onto a form that would normally be created unpinned (see table above) as pinned - hold the Ctrl key down while dragging.

Laying out forms

Positioning unpinned components

You can drag unpinned components around in their parent component, and they will placed wherever you drop them.

You can also manually control the order of unpinned components by editing the Order field in the details of the component. This is found in the Positional Settings section of the details. The video above gives an example of using both of these methods - dragging, and manual update.

Positioning pinned components

You can drag pinned components to any position on a form.

You can "pin" the edges of the component to its parent component using the Positional Settings in the component's details. These specify the offsets, in numbers of pixels, between the edge of the component and the edge of the parent. An example of pinning a component to its parent in this way is given in the video above.

Note that if you set the right or bottom offsets in Positional Settings, this overrides any width or height set for the component.

Mixing pinned and unpinned components

Pinned components can be dragged over unpinned components, so be careful when mixing pinned and unpinned components on a form, Think of these as being laid out in two separate, overlapping layers on the form.

Switching between unpinned and pinned

To change an unpinned component to pinned, press the Ctrl key down and drag it.

To unpin a pinned component, right-click on it and select Unpin Selected Objects. You can select several components at once, and unpin them all using this option. The components will move into the next available space in their respective parent components.

Moving a component to a new parent

To move a component to a new parent, press Shift and drag it to the new parent. Commonly this is used to move components inside an area to a new area.

To confirm that the component has moved to the new parent, remember the techniques to find the parent of a component: Find a component's parent

Preventing components from being dragged

Sometimes, when laying out a form, you may find it interesting to "lock" a component in place, to stop yourself dragging it to a new position by accident. To do this, tick the Prevent Dragging flag in the component details. This is found in the Positional Settings section.

Connecting Forms to Data

You can connect forms to data in a stream by simply dragging the stream icon from its property tab onto the form. PhixFlow will prompt you to select the type of stream or card view that you want to create; see Stream Views Pop-Up Menu.

Auto Sizing

When you are designing a layout, you can use the Layout area → Style Settings→ Auto-size property to make components adjust automatically when the application's window is resized by the user. 

You can use the context menu option  Turn auto size off/on to toggle the autosize property as you work.