Field Types

Tap Forms has 23 different field types. Each field type has its own set of properties that can be set in order to customize the way Tap Forms displays and edits your data.

The following table describes all the field types available in Tap Forms.

Icon	Field Type	Description
	Text	Text fields store small amounts of text. Normally a single line’s worth. For example, a Movie Title.
	Number	Number fields display numeric data. They can be configured to format the display as currency, decimals, percentages, scientific notation, spell out (e.g. “twenty four ninety nine”), or as a duration (e.g. “10 hrs, 3 mins” or “10:03”).
	Date	Date fields will display the month, day, and year. The display format used depends on your Region Format settings in the System Preferences. In general, Tap Forms uses the Medium date format to display dates.
	Time	Time fields will display the hours and minutes and AM or PM. This also depends on your region settings. If you have 24 hour mode enabled then you won’t see AM or PM. Tap Forms uses the Short time format to display times.
	Date & Time	Date & Time fields are a combination of the Date and the Time fields displayed in a single field. The Date part will use the Medium date format. The Time part will use the Short format. By adding a Date & Time field to your form, you can also enable the Alerts function in Tap Forms. With the Alert function you can tell Tap Forms to notify you at the specified date and time. You can also include a short note which will be displayed along with the notification. Alerts can be scheduled to repeat at a variety of frequencies. These options are available when you’re editing a date value in your record.
	Date Created	Tap Forms keeps track of the date a record was created. The Date Created field type will expose this field to your forms. You can sort by this field or filter your records by this field.
	Date Modified	Tap Forms also keeps track of the date and time a record was modified. You can sort by this field or filter your records by this field. Please note however that if you change the sorting of your form after your form is created, Tap Forms will update the Date Modified value for each record to be the current date and time. So it’s best to set it once and leave it.
	Audio Recording	Tap Forms for Mac can play back audio recordings made on Tap Forms for iOS, but it cannot record audio notes on its own. When you sync, Tap Forms for Mac will gain access to the audio notes you created on iOS.
	Calculation	The Calculation field type lets you construct formulas to compute mathematical expressions. Formulas can contain references to other fields within your form. You can use all the basic mathematical operators such as ( ) * / – + as well as the keyword $now. The $now keyword will insert the current time into the formula before being evaluated.
	Checkmark	The Checkmark field lets you have a basic on/off switch for setting whether something is true or false, on or off, yes or no, etc. Checkmark fields can be used in formulas also. For example, if you wanted the total to be computed only when a checkmark field is on, just drag the checkmark field into your formula and use multiplication to cause the result to be either 0 if it’s off or whatever the regular result would be if the checkmark field value is on.
	Contact	The Contact field lets you reference a contact from your Mac’s Contacts database. Tap Forms will copy the first and last names into its database as well as the Contact’s unique identifier. This information will be used to look up the contact’s record from the Contacts database whenever you click on the contact button to the right of the field. Note: due to the way Apple syncs contacts across devices, the unique identifier could get changed between devices. This can cause Tap Forms to display the wrong contact when you click on the contact button to the right of the field.
	Drawing	The Drawing field type on Mac is a read-only field. You can create drawings on iOS and view them on the Mac version. You cannot draw into a field on the Mac version.
	Email	The Email field will give you a button to the right of the field which will launch Mail whenever clicked and pass the email address entered into the field into the To: field of a new email message. Separate email addresses with commas to address more than one email address at a time.
	File Attachment	The File Attachment field will let you store one or more files associated with your record. You can tell Tap Forms if your File Attachment field supports just one file or multiple files by checking the Multi-File Enabled checkbox on the Field Properties screen. When Multi-File Enabled is checked, you will see a list of files within your File Attachment field. You can double-click on a file to launch the app which is responsible for that field type. You can also choose to attach your file as a copy of the file or as an alias of the file. When you attach a copy, Tap Forms will copy the file selected into the database. When the database is synced, so will the attachments that were copied into the database. So you will be able to access the same files on your iOS devices and other Macs that are syncing the same database document. Aliases cannot be viewed on other devices nor synced.
	Link to Form	This field lets you connect different forms together in a parent to child relationship. Use One to Many if you don’t want or need to share the records from the linked form with other forms or records. Use Many to Many if you’d like to be able to select from a list of previously entered records from another form and link them to the parent record. Use Join if you’d like Tap Forms to manage the relationship between your forms for you based on fields that match between the parent and child forms. Enable the Show Inverse Relationship option if you want to display the parent record on the child form you’re linking to.
	Link from Form	The Link from Form field will display the parent record that links to the child record. This field should never be created on its own. It is automatically created for you from the Link to Form field when you enable the Show Inverse Relationship option.
	Location	The Location field type will display to you a map of your current location. You can search for different locations and drag the pin around to change your location. You can also edit the location name, but Tap Forms will first do an address lookup to fill in the address that matches your current location.
	Note	The Note field type allows you to enter in large amounts of text. Text can also be styled using different fonts, sizes, and colours. The Mac version has the ability to add bulleted lists, but these are not displayed on the iOS version of Tap Forms.
	Phone	The Phone field will convert a set of digits into a formatted phone number taking into consideration different region formats for phone numbers. The iPhone version will also dial or text the number when the phone button is tapped.
	Photo	The Photo field will let you select a photo from your hard drive or use the built-in camera to take a photo. You can also drag and drop an image into the Photo field from your hard drive. Once a photo has been attached to your Photo field, you can click on the QuickLook button to view a larger version of the photo or click the trash can button to delete it.
	Rating	The Rating field will display up to 10 stars that you can click on in order to rate your records. For example, if you were maintaining a movie library you could add the film’s popularity rating to your record. Ratings can be used in calculations and also at the form level. So you could display the average rating for all the movies in your library.
	Section Heading	The Section Heading field will help you to organize the fields within your form into sections. This makes working with long forms much easier.
	signature	The Signature field type on Mac is a read-only field. You can create signatures on iOS and view them on the Mac version.
	Table	The Table field type is a simple way of creating a field that can hold multiple values, displayed in a grid or tabular format. Table fields are similar in some ways to a form in that it’s comprised of one or more fields itself. Bento had a similar field type called a Simple List. You can also select a form to connect to a Table field which can be used to copy fields from into your Table field. This also allows you to select records from the connected form to copy into your Table field’s sub-records. Tap Forms will use the field titles in the Table field to match the field titles in the connected form in order to determine which values to copy from the selected records.
	Website	The Website field lets you store an address to a website or even another application on your own computer. When you click on the website button to the right of the field, Tap Forms will launch your web browser and take you to the address specified.