Section Form Element

The Section form element allows you to group form elements into sections.

There are different styles of section:

Fieldset: Fieldset sections are surrounded by a frame.
Group: Group sections have a bar at the left.
Unstyled: Unstyled sections are not styled in any special way.

In the screen capture below, is a Fieldset section and is a Group section.

Example of two Section form elements, shown in a Geocortex viewer

Sections are useful for organizing a form into conceptually related parts. One of their advantages is that you can hide or show an entire section, including all the section's elements, by changing the section's visibility. This saves you from having to change the visibility of each of the section's elements individually.

Configure Sections

When you create a new form, the form contains header () and footer () elements. You cannot add elements above the header or below the footer. At the top of the form (below the header), you can have elements that are not in sections. In the screen capture below, the drop-down list () and text box () are not in sections.

Any sections that you add to a form are below the elements that are not in sections (above the footer). The screen capture below shows two sections, a Group section () that contains a checkbox and a text box, and a Fieldset section () that contains an auto complete element and a number element.

To add elements to a section, drag and drop the elements onto the section one at a time.

You cannot nest sections.

Form with sections shown in Workflow Designer (left) and in the Geocortex Viewer for HTML5

Section Properties

The following table describes the properties of the Section form element. Some properties can be configured in the Properties panel in Workflow Designer. These properties have configuration information in the table. Similarly, some properties can be accessed in expressions. These properties have information about how to access the property in an expression.

If a property can be configured in the Properties panel and accessed in expressions, the property has two names: the name that appears in the Properties panel and the name that is used in expressions. Both names are given in the table. Sometimes the names only differ in capitalization, for example, Visible (in the Properties panel) or visible (in expressions).

Properties of the Section Form Element

Description

Type: String

A description of the element. The description appears below the element's title.

You can use the Description property to describe what the element represents or to provide instructions to the user about how to use the element.

You can format the description using Markdown.

Element ID

Type: String

The element's ID, which is used in other form elements and activities to access the element's properties. The ID must be unique across all elements in the form.

You cannot get or set the value of the Element ID property in an expression—you can only use the value that you configured for it. To use the Element ID property in an expression:

${Display Form ID}.state.{Element ID}.{property name}

For example:

$form1.state.section1.visible

Style

The style for presenting the section.

The possible styles are listed below. In Workflow Designer, the different styles are indicated by different colored bars at the left.

Fieldset: Surrounds the section with a frame and darkens the background.
Group: Marks the section with a bar at the left and darkens the background.
Unstyled: Does not provide any styling to mark the section.

Title

Type: String

The element's title, which appears at the top of the element. By default, the title is blank.

You may want to change the title to describe what the element represents in your workflow. Descriptive titles make forms easier to understand.

You can format the title using Markdown.

type

Type: String

The variety of form element. Section elements are type "Section".

Use the type property to find out the variety of a form element in a form with many elements: loop through ${Display Form ID}.state, comparing each element to the known form types and performing some action on the elements that meet your type criteria.

To access the type property in an expression:

${Display Form ID}.state.{Element ID}.type

For example:

$form1.state.section1.type

Visible

Type: Boolean

Name in Properties Panel: Visible

Name to Use in Expressions: visible

Indicates whether the element is visible to the user. By default, sections are visible. If you want to hide the element initially, clear the Visible checkbox. You may want to change the visibility at run time depending on the user's input in a previous form element.

Hiding a section also hides the elements in the section. When a section is visible, you can hide individual elements in the section by setting the individual element's Visible property to false.

To access the visible property in an expression:

${Display Form ID}.state.{Element ID}.visible

For example:

$form1.state.section1.visible

Section Events

The following table describes the events associated with the Section form element.

Events for the Section Form Element

load

The load event fires when the element finishes loading.

You can use the load event to set one or more of the element's properties at run time.

Documentation Version 5.10