How to Change Captions and Field Settings on a Form
Every field on a call's Details page or a customer's Overview has a caption (the text beside its box) and a size, and you can change both while customizing. Start with Customize this layout… in the list beside Details or Overview in the sections rail, then select a field and use the right-click menu or the properties panel under Hidden items.
How do I rename a field on the call or customer screen?
While customizing, double-click the field (or select it and press F2, or right-click it and choose Rename…), type the new caption and press Enter. Press Escape to leave it as it was. Clicking somewhere else also keeps what you typed.
- Start customizing with Customize this layout… beside Details or Overview.
- Double-click the field whose caption you want to change. Its caption turns into a text box with the text selected.
- Type the new caption.
- Press Enter to keep it, or Escape to cancel.
- Select Done at the top of the screen when you have finished customizing.
You can also type the new caption in the Caption box of the properties panel under Hidden items, which shows the original caption faintly while the box is empty. The Caption box is also the way to rename a field whose text you have hidden with Hide text, because double-click and F2 only work on a caption that is shown.
If you clear a field's caption completely, the field goes back to its original caption. When you rename a group or a label on the form itself and leave it blank, the group is called "Group" and the label says "Label". Clearing a group's Caption box or a label's Text box in the properties panel does not do that: it leaves the group without a name or the label empty.
A new caption is part of your layout only. Other people see the original caption, and the Hidden items list and any message about the field keep using the original name.
Panels such as Documents, Scheduled visits, Map or Calls summary have no caption to rename; they carry their own heading.
How do I hide a caption or move it above the field?
Right-click the field while customizing and choose Hide text to show the box without its caption, or open Text position and choose Left, Top, Right or Bottom. The same settings are in the properties panel as Show caption and Caption position.
- Hide text removes the caption and lets the box use the whole width. The menu then offers Show text to bring it back.
- Text position places the caption to the Left of the box (the usual place), on Top of it, to its Right or at the Bottom. The position in use has a tick. Check boxes put their caption on the right unless you choose otherwise.
- Caption width in the properties panel sets how wide the caption column is for this field, in pixels, from 40 to 400. It only applies when the caption is on the left. Left empty, it shows "Default" and the form's own width.
A required field keeps its asterisk wherever its caption goes.
These settings change one field at a time. To put every field's caption above its box at once, click an empty part of the form while customizing so that nothing is selected, and set Caption position to Top in the properties panel, which is then headed Layout. A field you have given a position of its own keeps it.
How do I change the settings for the whole form at once?
Click an empty part of the form so nothing is selected; the properties panel is then headed Layout and says "Select an item on the layout to change it. These are the defaults every item starts from." Its two settings apply to every field that has not been given its own:
- Caption position — Left, Top, Right or Bottom. As shipped, both screens use Left.
- Caption width — the width of the caption column, from 40 to 400 pixels. As shipped it is 96 on the call screen and 112 on the customer screen.
A check box keeps its caption on the right unless you set its own position, whatever the form's setting.
A field you have set yourself keeps its own setting. In a field's own Caption position list, the first choice is "Default" followed by the form's current position, which means "follow the form". Its Caption width box likewise shows "Default" and the form's width while it is empty.
This is the quickest way to change the look of the whole call screen or Overview: for example, put every caption on Top to make the fields narrower, which suits a small window. Like every other change while customizing, the new settings are kept when you press Done, and Undo takes them back.
How do I make a field wider, narrower or taller?
Items that share a row split its width, and while customizing you drag the thin handle on the boundary between two items to change the share each gets. Multi-line boxes and panels also have a handle along their bottom edge that you drag to set their height.
- Width. Point at the boundary between two items in the same row and drag left or right. With the keyboard, select the boundary handle (it is called Resize) and press the Left or Right arrow key. An item never gets narrower than it needs to stay usable.
- Height. Items that can grow taller, such as most multi-line boxes, photos, the Contacts to e-mail grid and panels like Documents, Actions, Notes summary or Map, have a Resize height handle along their bottom edge. Drag it down or up. The properties panel shows the same number as Height, from 40 to 800 pixels; empty, it says "Fills the room", which means the item grows to fill the space its row is given.
Each drag counts as one step for Undo, however far you moved.
A width is a share of the row rather than a fixed number of pixels, so the form still fits when your window is narrower or wider.
What is in the right-click menu and the properties panel?
While customizing, right-click any item on the form (or select it and press Shift and F10 together, Shift+F10) for a menu of what you can do to it; the properties panel under Hidden items shows the same settings as boxes and buttons. Only the entries that make sense for the item are shown.
The right-click menu can hold:
- Rename… (F2) — for fields, groups and labels.
- Hide text or Show text, and Text position with Left, Top, Right and Bottom — for fields.
- Hide caption or Show caption, and Hide frame or Show frame — for groups.
- Group (or "Group 3 items" with several selected), and Ungroup when you right-click a group.
- Add empty space below and Add separator below.
- Hide item (Del), or "Hide 3 items" with several selected.
The properties panel is headed with the name of what you selected and what kind of thing it is. For a field it shows Caption, Show caption, Caption position, Caption width, Height where the field can be taller, and then which field it is, its control and which section it comes From, with Group and Hide buttons. For a panel it says "A panel of its own: move it, resize it, or hide it." With several items selected it is headed with how many, for example "3 items selected", and offers Group and Hide.