Disclaimer: As of June 2018, Form Builder 5.0 is the default version of the FormAssembly Form Builder. Visit the release blog post to learn about the Form Builder 5.0 improvements.
The Form Builder is now in its third version, and this one is quite a dramatic improvement. Over the last two years, we’ve been methodically gathering feedback and we tried to build upon this experience to deliver the world’s best web-based form builder. Yes, I’m not even trying false modesty, so feel free to hammer us when you report bugs 😉
Here what’s new in version 3:
- New layout options: Label alignment, multiple-choice alignment and field delimiters.
- New text and image section, with image upload.
- Brand new interface and several usability improvements.
- New form features: calculation fields and page skipping logic.
If you are not familiar with our Form Builder, check out the tour.
1. Layout Options
Layout and themes can now be adjusted independently. You can choose between three main layout options: labels above, left aligned labels, and right aligned labels. You can also adjust this setting question by question if necessary. At this time, the Form Builder is designed with left-to-right languages in mind. If you are creating forms in a right-to-left language, such as Hebrew or Arabic, we’d like to hear from you.
For multiple-choice questions you can specify if you want the choices to be listed horizontally (on the same line), or vertically (one choice per line).
Which layout is best depends on the nature of your form. The Form Builder gives you the options and lets you decide. For some insight on label placement, I highly recommend reading this usability study by Matteo Penzo.
Another addition to the Form Builder is the field delimiters, available in the question’s Advanced panel. They allow you to add text to the left and right of each field. This is useful for instance to add separators, or to display the unit for a numeric field.
2. Text and Image Section
With the new rich text editor, it is now much easier to add formatted text and images to your form. You don’t need to know HTML and you don’t need to host your images on a separate website. You can upload images and write text directly from the Form Builder.
3. Other User Interface Improvements
- Changes are applied immediately, so there are no ‘Ok’ / ‘Cancel’ buttons anymore.
- You can collapse unneeded panels to preview changes in real time.
- You can reorder and quickly import a long list of choices in multiple-choice questions.
- You can add javascript and css in the form’s advanced properties panel.
- There’s a new interactive help for a quick overview of the Form Builder.
- The preview now correctly renders HTML code in Firefox.
4. New Form Features
Form Builder 3.0 introduces calculated fields and extended support for conditionals. You can now implement a page skipping logic in a multiple-page form. These two new features will be discussed further in our next post.
If you haven’t tried the new Form Builder, give it a try now, and let us know what you think!
