Style Templates |
Note: when first using ViewsFlash, we recommend using the pre-written styles and becoming familiar with the entire application first, before creating your own. We recommend NOT CHANGING the original style templates, but rather creating your own from copies of the original templates, because they are subject to change as more capabilities are added.
When a Place is created, the Form style used for creating questionnaires and the Response style used to display the response page are chosen by picking the appropriate style from a menu and setting appearance options.
Styles are available from the Styles page. They are subject to access controls set by the application administrator. A survey creator who does not have the right to use a style will not have that style available in his or her menu choices.
Here's a quick description of how styles are used. When a respondent is presented with a questionnaire, Form and Question styles are used to dynamically compose each page of a questionnaire. After the questionnaire is completed, the Response style is used to compose the page presented to the respondent, including optionally a graph showing how people have answered one or more questions in real time. Archive styles are used to compose archived questionnaire listings. Here are examples of these styles using a very simple questionnaire.
There are several kinds of style templates. Form and Question styles are used to give questionnaire forms their look and feel. The default Form style is called Standard_, and it works with question styles whose names begin with Standard_, such as Standard_Matrix, Standard_Calendar, etc. See Question Styles for the complete list.
| Style Name | Type | Purpose |
| Standard_ | Form style | renders standard questionnaire forms |
| Results | Response style | renders response page presented to visitor after questionnaire is completed |
| UnivariateReport | Univariate report | renders Univariate analysis reports |
| XtabReport | Crosstab report | renders Cross tabulation analysis reports |
| DataReport | Data report | renders Data grid reports |
| XMLStructure | Form | renders questionnaire in XML format |
| XML | Response | renders live tallies in XML format |
| ListArchive | Archive | renders archive listings |
| MenuArchive | Archive | renders archive listings |
| See also Question Styles | ||
The Styles page
This page lists available styles. To view or edit a template, click on its name. To remove one or more templates check the box next to each, choose Remove from the pull down menu and press Go.
To create a new style, it is best to copy an existing style as follows: check the box next to the style to copy, pick Copy selected, give the style a name, and press Go. It is also possible to pick New Style, enter a name for the new style (usually with a trailing underscore), and press Go.
If the Standard_ form and question styles are not flexible enough to meet your needs, you may create your own. To do so, make a copy of the Standard_ style, and include an underscore as the last character of the name of the new style, eg., Corporate_ . When you create the style, you will notice a field that says "Compatible with Standard_". This means that all question styles that begin with Standard_, such as Standard_Email, will work with the Corporate_ form style as well as the Standard_ style, and will be available for use. If the style is intended to be incompatible with the Standard_ style, leave the field blank, and create question styles that begin with Corporate_.
The support section of www.cogix.com includes a Styles Library. To include a style downloaded from there, save the file in a /temp directory. Create a new style, indicate what type of style it is, and press the Upload button. Select the downloaded file from the /temp directory and press Upload.
Editing Styles
Before creating a template, check the Place Settings page to see if the appearance options are sufficient. They include, for example, the questionnaire's colors, fonts, type size and width, and the colors in the response page's graphical percentage bars. The place settings selection menu normally shows only form styles that are compatible with the currently selected style, but it includes a View All choice that allows choosing any form style.
The Style Template page is used to modify the style. Styles are HTML and Javascript code, mixed in with special ViewsFlash tags, described in Style Tags. ViewsFlash fills these tags with the appropriate contents, such as the title of a questionnaire or the text of a question. It is best to leave these tags alone and to work carefully around them. For example, it is safe to add colors to the foreground or background, or to insert an advertising banner and logo at the top of a page.
The Preview button may be useful in previewing changes, but depending on what they are, it may be necessary to create a test questionnaire to fully see the results produced by the template.