A Tab Container puts several sets of fields behind tabs, so a long form becomes a handful of shorter ones without the user leaving the page. Each tab holds its own fields and is built the same way as any other container: drag fields onto the tab that is currently showing.


Tabs suit a form whose sections are independent and can be filled in in any order - a customer's details, their address, their preferences - and a form the user will come back to and want to jump around in. For a long form that is worked through from beginning to end, Pages are the better fit.


An important limitation

Fields inside a tab that is not currently showing are not computed. A Math Label or any other calculated field inside a tab must therefore depend only on the fields in that same tab. Put a total that draws on fields from several tabs outside the tab container - above it or below it - where it is always visible and always calculated.


Settings

Tabs - The list of tabs. Each has a Tab Name, an Icon, and a Show When condition that decides whether the tab appears at all. Tabs can be dragged into order, copied and deleted. On a narrow screen only the icon is shown, because there is no room for the text, so give every tab an icon if the form will be used on a phone.


Default Tab - Which tab is showing when the form opens.


Field Name - The name used to refer to the container in conditions and in actions.


Display

Tab Padding - The space inside each tab's own label.


Body Padding - The space between the container's edge and the fields inside the showing tab.


Active Tab Text and Active Tab Color - The text and background colors of the tab currently showing.


Inactive Tab Text and Inactive Tab Color - The same for the tabs that are not.


* Leave the colors blank to follow the site's theme.


Shadow Size - None, Small, Medium or Large drop shadow around the container.


Using tabs with conditions and actions

A tab's Show When condition is the neat way to build one form that serves several audiences: give internal staff a tab that external users never see, or show a tab only once the record has reached a particular workflow step. The Field Conditions topic covers the sources available.


Because every tab's fields are on the form whether or not that tab is showing, a value entered on one tab can be used by conditions and actions anywhere else on the form. The one thing that does not carry across is calculation, as above.