Form Designer: Activity Form

The Activity Form designer decides what staff see on the Detail tab of an activity — which fields appear, how they're grouped, the order they're in, and how each value is presented. It's the same visual editor used for the Request and User forms, pointed at the activity record, and you save your work as a reusable layout template.

Most sites never need to touch this. Aeon includes a built-in activity layout, and you only open the Activity Form designer when the default doesn't fit — typically to surface your activity custom fields with meaningful labels, reorder or rename groups, hide fields you don't use, or build an alternate layout for a particular role. The work is visual and direct: the designer shows a live canvas of the activity record, and you edit it in place — click an element to select it, drag it to move it, drag its edge to resize it, and set its properties from a small toolbar that appears above it.

When you'll use this

• Your library uses the Activity Info 1–5 custom fields and you want them shown with meaningful labels and grouping.
• You want to reorder, rename, or hide cards on the activity Detail tab.
• Different teams need a different activity view — build a template here and assign it to a role.

Editing the layout vs. editing an activity

This page is about designing the form — the reusable template that decides what the activity Detail tab looks like. It does not change any individual activity's data. Adding a field here means the field becomes available to edit on every activity that uses this template; it does not fill in a value.

Who can use the Form Designer

The Form Designer lives in the Customization Manager and requires the Designers configuration capability. If your role doesn't have it, the Designers group won't appear in the Customization Manager menu, and the underlying layout-template API rejects the request. The built-in Administrator role has this capability; the built-in Staff role does not. See Roles & Capabilities.

Getting there

1. Open the Customization Manager.
2. In the left menu, expand the Designers category.
3. Click Form Designer.

Form Designer opens on the Request form by default. To edit the activity record, choose Activity Form in the left menu. (The other options are Request Form and User Form.)

Not the same as "Activity Designer"

The Form Designer's Activity Form lays out the activity record. It's a different feature from the Activity Designer nav item, which is its own thing under Designers.

A wider screen helps

The designer needs room to show the palette and the canvas side by side. On a phone-sized screen Aeon shows "Larger Display Required" instead of the editor — use a tablet or desktop.

The workspace

The Form Designer has a toolbar across the top and two working areas below it — a field palette on the left and the canvas in the center.

Across the top toolbar you'll find:

• The template selector (left) — the layout you're editing, with the current default template tagged default. Next to it, the ⋯ menu holds template management (see Working with templates).
• Undo and redo arrows (Ctrl+Z / ⌘Z and Shift+Ctrl+Z / ⇧⌘Z).
• A Zoom control (50% / 75% / 100% / 125%).
• A save-state indicator — Saved, Unsaved, or Saving... — and the Save button. A discard (circular-arrow) button appears next to it whenever you have unsaved changes.

A hint line above the canvas sums up how you work: "Click to select · Drag to move · Drag the right edge to resize · Double-click titles to rename."

Area	What it's for
Field palette (left)	Every activity field you can place, grouped by category, with a Search fields... box. Drag a field onto the canvas, or click + to add it to the selected card. The reusable Template Text element sits at the top.
Canvas (center)	A live rendering of the activity Detail tab — it is the editing surface. Click any element to select it; a small toolbar appears above the selection with that element's controls. The preview shows placeholder content, not a real activity; you're arranging the layout, never any activity's data.

There is no separate "properties panel" — each element's settings live in the toolbar that pops up above it when you select it.

How an activity form is structured

The canvas is organized into three nested levels, plus a header:

• Header — the strip at the top of the record for at-a-glance content. You build it from template text lines.
• Panels — the large top-level containers on the Detail tab.
• Cards — the labeled blocks inside a panel.
• Fields — the individual pieces of data, arranged on a 12-column grid so you can place two fields side by side or let one span the full width.

Panel, Card, Field — the on-screen terms

These are the words the canvas toolbars use: a panel is a top-level container, a card is a block inside it, and a card holds fields. When you add a block to a panel the button reads Add card; when you remove one it asks Remove card? (and Remove panel? for the container).

The Detail tab is the editable part

The activity record is organized into tabs. Only the main Detail tab is customizable here — it holds the panels and cards you arrange. The record's other tabs have their own dedicated screens and don't appear as editable elements in the designer.

Working with templates

Everything you edit belongs to a template, chosen from the selector at the top left of the toolbar. The template marked default is the one staff see unless their role is assigned a different one.

The ⋯ menu gives you:

• New Template — create a fresh template. If you have one selected, the new template starts as a copy of it; otherwise it starts from the current default.
• Duplicate — copy the current template under a new name (pre-filled as "<name> (Copy)").
• Rename — rename the current template.
• Set as Default — make this template the one used when no role-specific layout applies.
• Reset to System Default — discard all customizations in this template and restore Aeon's built-in activity layout. Aeon confirms first: "This will overwrite all customizations in this template. This action cannot be undone."
• Delete — remove the template. Aeon confirms that this "will also remove any role assignments that reference this template. This action cannot be undone."

Where the built-in default comes from

The system-default layout that Reset to System Default restores is defined on the server, not in your browser — so a reset always returns to Aeon's shipped activity layout.

Switching templates with unsaved changes

If you've edited the layout and try to pick a different template, Aeon warns "You have unsaved changes. Discard and switch templates?" Switching anyway throws away your edits. Save first if you want to keep them.

Adding a field

The most common task is putting a field — often one of your custom fields — onto the record.

1. In the field palette on the left, find the field. Browse by category (Overview, Schedule, Logistics, Billing, Metrics, Custom Fields, and more) or type in the Search fields... box to filter.
2. Drag it onto the card where you want it — or select a card first and click the field's + to drop it into the selected card.
3. The field lands in that card and is selected automatically, so its toolbar appears ready for tweaking.

A field can only appear once on the form. Once it's placed, it disappears from the palette; if every field is already on the form you'll see "All fields are already on the form," and a search with no matches shows "No fields match your search."

Activity custom fields

Your site's custom activity fields — the Activity Info 1–5 fields — load into the palette under Custom Fields (defined in Custom Field Definitions). If you've given them friendly names there, those names are what staff edit against; the designer is where you choose which to show and how to group them.

Template Text — free-form labels and notes

Beyond data fields, the palette includes a reusable Template Text element (pinned at the top). Use it to place static or templated text — a heading, an instruction line, or a computed string that mixes in field values. Drop it like any field, then enter its content in the Template string box on its toolbar. The record header is built from these template-text lines; use Add template text in the header to build the title row.

Editing a field

Select a field on the canvas. A small toolbar appears above it with, left to right:

• Display mode — how the field behaves. Choose Input (staff can edit the value — the normal choice), Read-only (visible but not editable), or Display (rendered as formatted text). Not every field supports every mode — the Metrics fields (counts like Linked Users) are display-only.
• Swap field — replace this field with a different one, keeping its place on the grid.
• Typography — text styling for the field.
• Display — for a Display-mode field, choose the display template: Plain text, Icon + text, Badge + text, Text + button, Separator, Metadata line, or Template string (with an Edit template… option for the templated ones). A Template string can combine fields into one line using {fieldId} tokens.
• Field options (the sliders button) — the field's layout and label settings:
  • Custom label — override the field's default label with your own wording. For a Template Text element this is labeled Field name.
  • Column span (N/12) — how many of the 12 grid columns the field occupies.
  • Row order — the field's vertical position within the card.
• Remove field (the trash button) — take the field off the form. It returns to the palette so you can re-add it.

You can also set column span directly on the canvas by dragging the field's right edge.

Arranging the layout

• Move a field, card, or panel by dragging it on the canvas — or select it and use Alt + ↑ / ↓ (or ← / →) to nudge it among its siblings.
• Resize a field by dragging its right edge; a card or panel's width is set from its layout popover (the columns button: Display title, Column span (N/12), Row order).
• Rename a card or panel by double-clicking its title on the canvas, or editing its Display title in the layout popover.
• Restyle a card or panel from its style popover (the palette button).
• Add a panel with the Add panel button on the canvas; add a card to a panel with that panel's + (Add card) button.
• Remove a card or panel from the trash button on its toolbar. Aeon confirms — "Remove card?" for a card, "Remove panel?" for a panel — since removing a panel also removes the cards inside it.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Delete / Backspace — remove the selected field.
• Escape — clear the current selection.
• Alt + ↑ / ↓ (or ← / →) — nudge the selected element among its siblings.
• F6 / Shift+F6 — cycle focus between the palette and the canvas.
• Ctrl+Z / ⌘Z (and Shift+Ctrl+Z / ⇧⌘Z) — undo and redo.

Saving your work

The toolbar's right side always shows the current state — Saved, Unsaved, or Saving....

1. Make your changes; the indicator switches to Unsaved.
2. Click Save. The layout is written to the selected template and the indicator returns to Saved.
3. To throw away changes since your last save, click the discard (circular-arrow) button next to Save.

If a save fails, Aeon shows "Failed to save layout." and keeps your changes on the canvas so you can retry.

Don't navigate away with unsaved changes

Because layout edits live only in the browser until you save, leaving the page or switching templates while Unsaved discards them. Save before you move on.

How layouts reach staff

Saving a template doesn't, by itself, change what staff see — that depends on role assignments:

• The default template is used for any role that doesn't have its own activity-form layout assigned.
• To give a role a specific layout, assign the template to that role's Activity Form slot in Editing a Role: Layout Assignments.

Until then, a saved template just sits in the list.

Editor review — remove this callout (and the HTML comment below it) before publishing

ON HOLD — issue #287. Pending the outcome of the Activity-form preview issue (the design-time preview shows a lone sample value, "Instruction Session - HIST 210", with all other fields blank). Depending on the fix (fully populate the sample, mark values as "(example)", or remove them), the workspace description and the screenshots may need to match the updated preview — so hold the screenshot pass and finalization until #287 lands.

Confirm against the live Activity form:

• Default layout + tabs (needs a live screenshot): the activity form's default panels/cards and its exact tab list can't be verified from source anymore (default layouts are server-side / DB-only). The earlier draft listed a single Activity Information panel with cards Basic Information / Dates & Location / Reference Information / Custom Fields / Statistics / Status, and non-customizable tabs Requests / Users / Notes / History / Attendance — re-confirm these on screen (they may have changed, as the Request and User defaults did).
• Screenshots needed — all Activity-form captures (fields differ from Request/User, so nothing is reused): (1) the Activity-form workspace (also confirms the default layout + tabs); (2) a selected activity field floating toolbar; (3) a selected panel toolbar; (4) the template ⋯ menu.
• Cross-links: the links to Roles & Capabilities, Custom Field Definitions, and Layout Assignments resolve to existing pages; confirm they're the intended targets.

The full generation metadata is in the HTML comment directly below this callout.