Form Designer: User Form

The user form is the screen staff see when they open a patron record — the fields, the way they're grouped, and the order they appear in. Aeon includes a default user layout, so most sites never need to touch this. You come to the Form Designer when you want the user record to match how your desk actually works: surfacing a field your staff use constantly, hiding one you never fill in, adding a custom field you defined, or rearranging things so the most-used information sits at the top.

The work is visual and direct: the designer shows a live canvas of the patron record, and you edit that page 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. What you build is stored as a layout template, and templates can be assigned to different staff roles.

This page covers the User Form. The Request Form and Activity Form use the same designer and the same controls — only the available fields differ.

When you'll use this

• A field staff use all day is buried, or one you never use is taking up space — move it, or drop it from the layout.
• You created a custom user field (a User Info field) and want it to show on the record.
• You want a tidier record: rename a card, split fields across columns, or reorder so the most-used information is on top.
• Different teams need different views of the patron record — build separate templates and assign each one to a role.

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. This is an admin/customizer tool, not a per-staff preference. 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 patron record, choose User Form in the left menu. (The third option is Activity Form; see Form Designer: Activity Form.)

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 user 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 patron record using a sample patron (Kelly Sanders), so labels, columns, and spacing look realistic — it is the editing surface. Click any element to select it; a small toolbar appears above the selection with that element's controls. The sample data is for preview only — nothing you do here touches real patron records.

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

How a user 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. The default user layout has a Profile panel and an Account panel.
• Cards — the labeled blocks inside a panel (in the default layout, Identity, Contact, Primary Address, and the like inside Profile; Access and System inside Account).
• 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 patron 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 — Requests, History, Notes, Appointments, Emails, Proxies, Billing, Billing Accounts, and Attachments — 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 user 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 user 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 (Identity, Contact, Address, Access, System, 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."

Custom user fields show up automatically

Your site's custom user fields — the User Info 1–5 fields — load into the palette under Custom Fields (defined in Custom Field Definitions). No extra step.

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 ("Verify ID before clearing"), 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 — system fields like Creation Date 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).
• 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 example, relabel Department to read College / Department). 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.
• 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.
• 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.

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.

Changes apply going forward

Saving a layout changes how the user record is displayed; it doesn't alter any stored patron data. The next time a staff member opens a user record under that template, they see the new layout.

How layouts reach staff

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

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

This is what lets you maintain, say, a streamlined front-desk patron record and a fuller processing view from the same designer.