FB Design Problems and General Question

I am having a couple of problems making design changes to a very simple FB generated form, which can be seen at test1.php. I also have a general question.

First problem: Can't get FB to generate a smaller font size; it always generates 15 pixels. In the main Edit Design window, I tried setting the font size to 10 pixels but it won't generate it for the labels, at least. (BTW, setting a different font family name and color here work fine.) If I go back into FB it shows a value of 10 pixels. To work around this, I have to manually go into the form after generating the form via FB and set the label size to 10 as can be seen for the Name label. Although, I do see that the random question is 10 pixels. So, maybe I'm not setting it in the right place? Also, when I do make further changes to the form using FB, it will regenerate all the labels to 15 pixels and therefore overwrite any labels that I had changed to 10 pixels.

Second problem: Even though I set the Textarea Form Element width to 325 pixels and height to 75 pixels, it won't generate to those specifications. Likewise, if I set the width for the Text Form Element to 325, it won't generate that width either. That is, in the form I have online, both field width for both of these should be the same width and the height of the Textarea field should be shorter but they have not changed. The values in FB indicate they are 325 and 75.

General question: If I am generating a form in a two column page, should I specify a smaller form width? That is, should I change the default value of 850 to something smaller like the width of the area where I am placing the form?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

When it comes to the text size what adjustments are you making and how are you entering into the interface? The reason I ask is because when I try this it seems to make the labels match whatever value I use for the text size. I did notice that I had to refresh the page so that the new style showed but the changes were being retained whenever I made them.

As for the text area at what point are you updating the size, in my test form I was just making adjustments to the size from the drop down select list to make it small, medium, and large. The changes I made here were reflected in the form.

When you are crafting the form to fit in a particular area you should ensure that the width of the form is smaller than the width of the area you are applying it to. Please post back with some more detail about how you are making these edits so that we can help you get it the way you would like it.

Thanks for your reply, Eric.

I was able to determine why the labels always came out as 15px. Starting with an empty site I created a PHP file and then brought up FB. After selecting Form Elements from the top drop down menu and Elements Labels from the second drop down menu, there was a value of 15px already pre-assigned for the font size. If I removed that value, so that the field was now blank (and not setting it to 0), I could then select Form from the top drop down menu and then specify the desired font size there along with the font family and color. So, it appears that initial 15px value in the Elements Labels was overriding what I was specifying up front. So that problem is solved. (Eric, when you first generate a form do you see a 15px font size value in under Elements Labels, like I indicated? I'm trying to see if maybe I have corrupted my installation of FB somehow.)

Regarding the field widths problem, that still exists. I do see where I can select like Large, Medium or Small from a drop down menu for a Textarea under Form Elements. No matter which one I choose, I then specified a Width of 325px (or similar) and a Height of 75px, thinking that would force the field to use my values. Then after selecting Text from the second drop down menu, I again specified a Width value to be the same as one I had specified for Textarea. (I did not change the Height value here.) That is, I wanted all fields to be the same length. However, the result is always the same. That is, my values seem to be ignored. Or perhaps they are being overridden somewhere?? BTW, I do upload all files in the site each time to make sure I am getting all modifications. And, I do a refresh each time in my browser.

Regarding specifying a smaller width for the form to fit the page, I did test that on my own and it does work as you indicated. That might eliminate any problems like I had earlier experienced where I had to specify a negative offset to get the form to fit on the page correctly. I had created a separate thread on that issue previously.

Anymore thoughts on the width and height problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your support on this, Eric.

I mentioned what I found in another post regarding the text input widths. It appears as though when using Edit Design, you can set the values for small, medium, large, and X-Large under Form Elements->Textarea (for example) or Form Elements ->Text (and for others such as the combo group, etc.). Once you do this (I didn't like the rather large values for the width of these input fields), you then go to Edit Form, and where you see your textarea or text listed under "Set 1" (for example), you can choose small, medium, large, or X-Large that you set earlier during the Edit Design phase to choose how wide/high the input field will be. It will use whichever value you select and will use the pixel width that you assigned in Edit Design. So that's how it appears you control the width/height of the input fields that will be ulitimately used on your page. Design potential sizes in Edit Design, then choose the designed size of interest in Edit Form.

Again, assign the desired width/height of form inputs using Edit Design that "could" be used during Edit Form, then choose the actual size (small, medium, ...) you want to use during Edit Form (where it shows Line followed by Set x followed by the input in question) to control the width/height of the input field.

Mine too defaults to 15px for form elements by the way. I happen to use ems for my settings (.9ems), so I change the value. It looks as though you can set the font and its size under Form when in Edit Design, but the labels font and point size will override what is set there if you change it (probably because it's more specific if you look at the CSS file's code).

The place where I got into trouble last night was with saving presets while in Edit Form. It seems as though when clicking the category I wanted, it would revert to Login even though I selected something else for the category. I didn't notice it do that and ended up creating a preset that overrode my login preset which was unintentional. Also noticed that choosing a Design could be tricky in a similar way. So you have to be real careful when saving a preset around the name of the Category and Design so that it doesn't overwrite the preset that you didn't intend to alter. It cost me lots of time reconstructing some of the work I overwrote before I realize what was going on.

hope this helps,

steve

Yes! That solved my problem. Thanks so much for your response, Steve.