Saving Your Data

As discussed in several examples, when using one of the FormFusion components (MapForm, FormStamp, etc.) you need to save your work prior to moving on to another component.

For example, if a floating field is created within MapForm and you move on to FormStamp without saving the changes, the field will not be listed within the Variable Reference. After saving your data, the field will then be available to other FormFusion components.

To assist you in remembering to save your work, several reminders have been implemented as described below.

When making any change within the Design Area for any component, a red box will be placed around the corresponding component within the Process Tree which indicates that changes have been made but not have been saved. The figure below shows that changes to MapForm were made but have not been saved.

Process tree. A capture form is highlighted under its parent print parameter.

It is possible to have more than one component waiting for changes to be saved. In this case, each component will be surrounded by the red box. The data within each component must be saved individually. Double-click on the component, click the Save icon on the toolbar, then the red box will be removed for that component. Do this for each component that you want data to be saved.

As an additional reminder, when you close the Design Area, FormFusion will ask if you wish to save your data (see the figure below) giving you another opportunity to decide if you wish to save your data.

Save changes dialog. The dialog reminds you that you have unsaved changes, and gives you the opportunity to save those changes before exiting.

A further reminder to save your data has been implemented as shown in the figure below. This is an image of the tabs that appear on the top of the Design Area which indicate which components are in use. The FormStamp tab is displayed in red which serves as another reminder to save your data.

The tabs at the top of the design area. The tabs shown are map form, form stamp, and form director. Form stamp is marked in red with an asterisk to indicate that it has unsaved changes.

Also note the options available to you by right-clicking any of the tabs. You have various options for closing the tabs, or obtaining the location within the Process Tree of the component used in the tab.

The right click menu showing the options for selecting and closing tabs. You can close the active tab, all other tabs, or all tabs.

When choosing the Tabs menu item, yet another reminder to save your data is presented. Note in the figure below that FormStamp has the phrase “(modified)” which indicates that you have modified data within FormStamp but have not saved it.

More options available from the right click menu on the tabs. The mouse is hovering over the tabs option, revealing another menu showing the list of open tabs. The form stamp option shows the word modified in parentheses, which indicated unsaved changes on that tab.

Tip: Right-clicking on any of the tabs within the Design Area provides a convenient way to close individual or all tabs. It also provides a method to view where in the Process Tree the component (MapForm, FormStamp, etc.) is located.