Lightning Forms is a Microsoft SharePoint Form Design tool that enables organizations to create business forms using SharePoint lists. Layouts of your list forms can be improved by using Tabs to arrange fields, multiple columns, embedded buttons, command bar buttons, and sublists. Logic can also be improved with or without code. Most of the time, the intuitive expression builder helps non-developers to add powerful business logic to their forms, whilst developers can also extend the behavior of the form using script.
In this build (Released April 2021), we have released new features that allow you to improve your forms further with features such as Styling, Conditional Formatting, support for more column types, and enhanced lookup column.
The below form is a combination of two lists. The Expense Report list contains the header information for an expense report, but expense items can also be embedded in the same form. Solutions such as Purchase Order Forms, Leave Booking, and Travel Request forms are common uses of Lightning Forms.
What’s New
In this release, users of Microsoft SharePoint 2019 or Microsoft SharePoint Online can benefit from the following new features:
- Styling of all controls including labels, fields, headers, tabs, and the command bar
- Conditional Rules to apply to styling
- Enhanced Lookup Column with duplicate value removal and large list support
- Add read only fields to the Display form within SharePoint lists
- Support for Image and Enterprise columns
In this first section, we’ll discover the new styling capabilities.
Styling and Conditional Formatting
Many of our customers have requested the ability to style forms, as well as the addition of improved modern layouts and logic behind SharePoint list forms. Lightning Forms can now be used to add styling to each and every control within your SharePoint list form. The styles can be applied to labels, fields, tabs, rows, buttons, command bars, and titles. The controls can be navigated to using a treeview to expand each row and tab on the form. In order to keep your form “tasteful”, we also offer the theme colours as suggestions for styling the elements. Of course, if you want bright green, we won’t judge you!
Rules can also be set for when a style is applied. The rules are simple to create using the expression builder. The conditional formatting helps users navigate the form bringing their attention to parts of the form that have been completed incorrectly, or simply to highlight key areas.
Adding Fields
In the classic version of Lightning Forms, we allowed for columns to be created whilst you are within the design experience. This was a great feature when you realized that you had overlooked a required column in your initial list creation. That same feature is now included within Lightning Forms modern. A new column can be created at any time within the form designer which reduces frustration and design time.
Image Controls
Lightning Forms now includes support for the modern image control. The image field type can be created on the New Form, Display Form and Edit Form making it simple for users to add images within their list items. When you are within the display form as a user, you can click the image to view the image within a pop up.
Improved Lookup Filters
There are two major improvements to the Lookup columns with Lightning Forms. Using the enhanced lookup option, you can opt to show only unique items within the lookup making it a better experience for end users when duplicate values are displayed. Additionally, if you are looking up from a large list with more than 5000 rows, Lightning Forms overcomes the list view threshold limit.
Read Only Fields
Columns such as Created By, Modified By, Content Type, Modified Date and Created Date can now be included for display on the display form.
Please visit the customer download area to upgrade to Lightning Forms 3.0.0.0 if you are an existing customer, or download a trial from: https://lightningtools.com/product/sharepoint-modern-form-designer
