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As shown above for Process maps, we have full layout facilities
for form fields. The size Equally option is especially welcome, and
for me, the icons showing how centering works is great (I was
always getting it the wrong way around). The Increase and
Decrease spacing are welcome additions too.
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What is even neater, is the ‘snap to other fields’ feature. This is
much better than a ‘snap to grid’ feature, we feel.
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The ability to resize multiple fields at once with the mouse is a
great addition. It makes reorganising forms much less fiddly!
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This is my favourite new feature:
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Drag fields from a Business Object to create fields for that
variable. The only problem is you cannot get dropdown or listbox
fields this way, but that is minor.
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And you get the option to create a grid if you drag multiple fields!
The easiest and quickest way to create grids possible, I think.
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We’ve been after ‘temporary variables’ for a long time now. At
last we have them in all forms. We also have them for form
segments, so we can create really useful and functional reusable
components to drag and drop onto a form.
Obviously, once you delve into C# code you have the option to
create as many local variables as you wish as well.
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There is a new ‘Tab Order’ feature that Metastorm are touting as
fairly nifty.
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It is possibly clearer to use that the old way, although adding
new fields can involve a lot of clicking about, which is a pain.
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What is neater, and I’m not sure Metastorm are really aware of it
since it is not documented at all, is the ability to Group fields.
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This also gets set in the tab order, very usefully. There are some
issues with display of grouped fields in the Designer, however.
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One of the most time-consuming tasks that are non-productive in
Metastorm BPM is setting up forms to look the way you wish. It
is possible to have a standard form and keep importing it, but in
version 9 there are much easier ways.
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The approach is two-fold. Firstly you can set the colour of all new
forms. We are not sure why you cannot set the font as well, as it
would seem fairly simple.
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Better is the ability to save any form, admin form or form
segment as a template. You can (and we do) even add segments
to the template.
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Selecting the template you wish creates a copy of that form.
There are so many uses for this, we will not attempt to exhaust
them here, but will discuss in a forthcoming Metastorm BPM Hints
& Tips episode.
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1. The Benefits of Metastorm BPM ...
