Use Formidable's field options and icons to customize your forms and make form building easier than ever. This article will help you learn about the field options and field icons that can make your work easier.
Field icons
Formidable's field action icons allow you to duplicate, delete, and move fields. The default text icons give you control over the default values in your fields.
Field action icons
These icons are found in the upper-right corner of each field on your form builder page and can be used to duplicate, delete, or move fields.
- Duplicate field: duplicate a field and its options (the duplicated field is added to the bottom of the form).
- Delete field: delete a field.
- Move field: re-order fields within your form.
Default text icons
The default text icons appear to the right of a field input box when you add default text in the form builder page. These icons can be used to set placeholders and control field validation.
-
- Prevents the default value from passing validation. If this field is marked required, the user must change the default field value prior to submitting the form.
- Allows the default value to pass validation, even when marked as required.
- Clears the default text when a user begins typing in the field. This turns the default value into placeholder text.
- Does not clear the default text when a user begins typing in the field.
Learn more about using default values on the Default Values page.
Free field options
Field Type
Displays the current field type and allows you to switch the field to a different field type.
Required
Set a field to required so users must fill in the field before they can submit the form. By default, a required field is indicated with an asterisk (*). This can be changed to any other symbol or text. When the 'Required' box is checked, a new validation message box labeled 'Required' appears. If a user leaves a required field blank, the text in this 'Validation' → 'Required' box will be used to alert users that the field cannot be blank.
Field Key
A field key can be used to reference a specific field. By default, the key will be a random combination of letters and numbers. You can change the key if you would like, but it must be unique. If it is not unique, Formidable will add a number to the end of it. The key can be used interchangeably with the field ID. Note: a field key may not work correctly if it starts with 'if'.
CSS layout classes
Add CSS classes to a field. Use your own class or a Formidable layout class to customize your form layout. You can add multiple classes by inserting a space between each class.
Label Position
Set the label position of a field to default, top, left, right, inline, none, hidden, or placeholder inside the field. The default label position is defined in your Formidable 'Styles' → 'Field Labels' settings.
The inline option puts the label on the same line as your field as long as the field is not too wide. If you set the label position to none, the label will not be displayed. If you set the label position to hidden, the label will not be displayed, but it will leave a space.
The option "Placeholder inside the field" will display the label as placeholder text inside the field until text is entered in the field, and then the label will be moved to Top. If you'd like to only have a placeholder and not have the label moved above the field when a user types, use these instructions instead.
Field Size
Set the width of your field and the maximum number of characters that can be entered. In a Dropdown field, you can select 'automatic width', which sets the field size to the width of your longest option. You can change the default field size in your Formidable 'Styles' → 'Field Labels' settings.
Add Option
Click this button to add a new option to checkboxes, dropdowns, and radio button fields.
Bulk Edit Options
Checkboxes, dropdowns, and radio buttons have a Bulk Edit option which allows you to add, edit, or remove a lot of options quickly.
You can use this to easily add a large number of choices to your field by typing them into the box that appears when you select 'Bulk Edit Options'. You can also use this option to populate your field choices with a ready-made list of Countries, U.S. States, U.S. State abbreviations, age ranges, levels of satisfaction, importance, or agreement.
Pro field options
Unique
Prevents submission of a duplicate field value.
When you select this option, an error message will appear when the user hits 'Submit' if there has already been a submission with the same field value. You can customize this error message in the 'Validation' → 'Unique' box.
If using a Date field, previously submitted dates will be blacked out so they can't be selected again.
Read Only
Prevents user from editing a field value on the front-end of your site.
Visibility
Determine who can see a field. If you select a particular user role, all user roles above that option will be able to see the field as well. For example, if you select Contributor, all user types from Administrator to Contributor will be able to see the field. The only exception is logged-out users. If you select this user type, only logged-out users will be able to see the field.
Conditional Logic
Conditionally show or hide fields in your form based on values entered in previous fields.
Use Section Headings to conditionally show or hide large sections of your form. See the Conditional Logic page for more information.
Dynamic Default Value
Use this option when you would like a field to automatically populate. You can put a default value or shortcode in a field's Dynamic Default Value box:
You can also use dynamic default values for other fields that do not have this field option. For example, if you have a date field, you can make it populate automatically with the current date by putting [date] directly into the field.
Calculations
You can perform both numerical and text calculations with values entered in your form.
Choose how many decimal places you would like to show. If you choose 0, then there will be no decimals and it will round to the nearest whole number. See Field Calculations for more information about calculations.
Validation
Customize the error messages for each field in this section. When 'Required' and/or 'Unique' are selected then the 'Required' and/or 'Unique' validation messages can be customized here.
If you would like to customize the default validation messages, go to 'Formidable' → 'Global Settings' → 'Default Messages'.
Field-specific options
Most fields have additional options that can add to the functionality of your form. Click on a field type below to learn about its field-specific options.
