Adding new fields to the Customer Details dialog

Adding new customer information fields is relatively simple in version 4, through Maintenance / Data Field Definitions / Customer Fields (refer to that function's documentation).  However the fields aren't much use unless you can enter data for them (and see what was entered).  So the next step is to add them on the Customer Details dialog.

This example assumes that you've already added some new Customer data fields, and will show how to add them to the Customer Details dialog -- for simplicity we will make the dialog wider and use Quick-Add to put the new fields in a column along the right-hand side, but you could insert them anywhere you can find room.

1. The first step is to add a Dialog definition that's an Add-on to the Customer Details dialog.  Go to Maintenance / Advanced Customizations / Dialogs, and click "Add dialog definition".

Note: Only one Add-on definition can be active for a given dialog, so if you already had such a definition then you would just add elements on to the existing one instead of creating a new one here (in which case, skip to step 3).

2. Give it a name, such as "Customer Details add-on".  Then check the "Add-on" box and select "Customer Details" from the list.  Also make sure the "Enabled" box is checked.

3. Enter 150 for the Width (which will add 150 pixels to the width of the dialog).

4. We want to add all of the custom fields in one step (there is room for up to 14 new fields in this example).  Click "Quick-Add Fields", and enter these figures in the boxes:  Starting top position:70, Labels left position:620, Entry fields left position:690, Entry field maximum length:100, Vertical spacing:25.  Then click "Continue..."

Note: If you know that the screen resolution is more than 800x600, you could increase the Width figure in step 3, as well as the Entry field left position and/or the Entry field maximum length in step 4.

5. Select all of your custom fields (in the order you want them to appear) -- the easiest way is to double-click on each field in the left-hand list to add them to the right-hand list.  Click "Done" when all the fields you want are added to the right-hand list.

6. We also want to move the Save and Cancel buttons, since we made the dialog larger.  Start by clicking "Add Element".  Select "Move Control" for the Element type, and enter these values -- Control ID: 1, Left: 720, Top: 10.  Click "Save".

7. Click "Add Element" again, select "Move Control" for the Element type, and enter these values -- Control ID: 2, Left: 720, Top: 40.  Click "Save".

OK, now you're ready to test it. Click "Save & Test dialog" to see what it looks like.  You may need to do some editing of the labels (the Static text controls) and maybe adjust some sizes or positions, but that should be a good start.

Note that the Quick-add function did a lot of the "hard" work of entering appropriate expressions to load and save the data to the appropriate fields, etc.  You can take a look at the element definitions to see how it actually does it.