As indicated in topic Student Forms, imported student demographic data items can be viewed on the demographic page or on the grid data page. However, the demographic page contains only the data items that I've put there prior to sending you the original data files. Any demographic data items that you add, using the /AddItem directives or the eSchool Data Dictionary, into the files are not there. They can, of course, be viewed on the grid data page.
If you want to add your own data items to the demographic page, or to any other page for that matter, you can use eSchool's form design tools to do it. Adding data items is a simple drag and drop affair, as I'll illustrate below.
eSchool PDA Edition users and eSchool System Manager users have the rights to edit the layout of data forms. This is done in two places: 1) in the Form Manager to create a new form, delete an existing form, change the size of the form, edit the page tab text, and add and delete pages in the form and 2) in the form itself to add items, delete items, change the size or location of existing items on a form page. I'll illustrate the second case here.
The form design on a page uses the Form Design Toolbar. This toolbar is made visible by first doing a right-click on any part of the form (except on the list page), choosing the Edit Form menu item, and then choosing Start Form Design in the right-click submenu, as shown in Figure 5-112.
Figure 5-112: The right-click menu, showing the Edit Form and Start Form Design menu items
After the Start Form Design menu item is selected, the eSchool PDA Edition Form Design Toolbar is displayed above the data form, as shown in Figure 5-113. Data items are added by click on the toolbar's Add button. The click launches the data item picker form, as shown on the right side of Figure 5-113.
Figure 5-113: The Form Design Toolbar and the Data Item Picker form for dragging data items to the form
Data items are placed on the form by dragging the data item's icon (the blue grid graphic element to the left of each item in the item picker form) onto the form. As the drag is done, a small rectangular wire frame, representing the object, becomes visible. Releasing this somewhere on the form drops the data object in the selected location. Unfortunately, the screen shot software I'm using, Snagit from TechSmith Corporation (www.techsmith.com) does include the wire frame in the captured image. Therefore, I can't show you what it looks like. Anyway, Figure 5-114 shows the result of the drag and drop operation for the Car Stall data item.
Figure 5-114: The demographic page after dragging and dropping the Car Stall data item onto the page
After the data item has been dropped onto the page, it can be moved to make the form page look more tidy. Clicking on the Drag button on the design toolbar makes the data item picker form disappear and puts the form designer into drag mode. In drag mode, any item can be dragged to a new location by putting the mouse cursor on it and doing a simple drag and drop. Figure 5-115 shows the result after dragging the caption and data to their new locations.
Figure 5-115: After dragging the Car Stall caption and text box objects to a new location
Data items can also be moved, one pixel at a time, using the Nudge option and the four directional arrows to the right of the Nudge button in the toolbar. Other more sophisticated design and alignment tools are described in the eSchool user manual.
Once that data is moved to its desired location, it can be resized by clicking on the Resize button in the toolbar. During the resize operation, the Width and Height spinners become active. In Figure 5-116, I've increased the width of the Car Stall text box to 90 pixels wide.
Figure 5-116: Resizing the Car Stall text box so it is now 90 pixels wide
Pocket eSchool User Manual Topics Map
Overview
Pocket eSchool
Installing Pocket eSchool
Installing eSchool PDA Edition
Downloading your School's Data
Importing Data
Viewing the Imported Data
Student Forms
Form Design <----- You are here
Managing Relationships
Teacher and Person Forms
Section Forms
Importing Pictures
Scripting data for the Handheld
Preparing the Demographic Data Grids
Setting the Download Specifications
Downloading to a Palm
Downloading to a Pocket PC
Update Notes