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Differences between Forms and QForms

It is easy to distinguish a QForm from a regular Form. When the QForm Editor is open, you can see the text "You are editing a QForm."

The distinction between a regular Form and a QForm is important because a QForm serves a different purpose. QForms are meant to enter values for Fields used in Text Blocks, which do not have a value yet when the Text Block is called in the Master Template script. For this reason the following features of the regular Form are not available or are different in the QForm:

  • By default, validation of questions in a QForm is set to "A non-empty answer is required." This ensures that the user enters data for Fields used in the Text Block. If this is not desired, select "None can be selected" on the tab Validation of the question.
  • You cannot insert Text Block Questions. When you use a Text Block Question, you generate new Text Blocks, which can in turn contain more empty Fields. Those should be checked again. To prevent a recursive circle from Text Block Questions to the QForm, you cannot select Text Block Questions.
  • You cannot make a question read-only, because the user must always be able to fill in the Fields by providing an answer to the question on the QForm.
  • The feature to show or hide groups of questions is not available. Questions are always shown when the assigned Field is empty, and is always hidden when they already have a value.
  • As a consequence, you cannot enter a reference for a question. The function of references is to present or hide groups of questions in response to an answer to a previous question. In a QForm, questions are never hidden or shown conditionally, depending on a previous answer.
  • You can only select a Field from a Field Set as answer for one question per Form. When a user wants to select a Field as value for an answer that is already in use for another question, the user receives a warning. It is possible to save an erroneous QForm. The error message of the QForm Editor is stored with the revision and shown in the description pane. The revision of an erroneous QForm is tagged as "failed," it cannot be made [accepted] and therefore also not promoted to [published].