Gather your requirements
The first step in creating a database application is to determine the type
of information you want to manage and the different categories they
belong to. For example, an Employee Manager application will have categories like Employee, Department etc. Each category will become your application's Form and the items that need to be managed in each category will be the Fields
that will appear in each Form. For example, the form "Employee" will
have fields like Employee_ID, Employee_Name, Qualification, Join_Date
and the form "Department" will have fields like Department Code,
Department Head etc.
Your
database application may undergo constant changes in the type of data
to be held, the number of fields required, the business logic etc.,
before it is put for optimal use. Zoho Creator supports a progressive
development environment with flexibility to modify your database
structure at any point of time. Once you are ready with your initial
set of requirements, sign-in to Zoho Creator, if you already have an account. If
you don't have one, sign up right now and
get started.
This is a simple tutorial to get started with Zoho Creator. In this tutorial we will see how to create a 'My Contacts' application and share it with couple of users
to collect their contact information.
Create the Application
- Login to Zoho Creator and click on the
button displayed
on the top-right corner of your Homepage.
- The Create New Application dialog will be displayed with the 3 different options to create a new application
- 'Add Form' - Create application from scratch
- 'Import Xls' - If you have data in your spreadsheet, you can import it using this option
- 'Deluge Script' - Deluge Script is easy-to-use programming language
- In this tutorial, we will see how to create application using 'Add form' option.
- Specify the application name as My Contacts, and form name
as New Contact.
- Select Create From Scratch
- Select the time zone relevant to your locale from the Time Zone
drop-down menu. This will help you to display the time.
- Click Create Now to create the application.
 Note: |
You can make your application as public
or private. A public application can be accessed by the public visitors (ie., anyone) and the records/information will be crawled by the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN...). A private application will be accessible ONLY by the users with whom the owner has shared. By default, Zoho Creator application is private.
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The My Contacts application is created with a blank New
Contact form, as shown in the screen-shot given below.
A Zoho Creator application is basically made up of Forms
and Views. Forms to collect the information and Views to see
the collected information. The screen displayed below is the Edit Mode. The Edit mode is where the owner will be creating necessary Forms and Views. Access mode is
where the owner/users will enter data via Forms and see the entered data via Views. On the
left-side you will find the various field types you can use to create
your form.
-
Now, let us add the required field types to the New Contact
form, through easy drag & drop.
- Drag and drop the Single-line text field, specify the Label Name as Name and click Done
- Drag and drop the E-mail field type, specify the Label Name as Email Address and click Done.
- Drag and drop the Number field, specify the Label Name as Contact Number and click Done.
Now, you have your Contact form ready for users to submit their data. You can customize your form, field and label widths by selecting More Actions -> Form Properties, from the form header.
- In the Views tab, a default view will be created. View will display the fields as columns. You can rearrange the columns through easy drag and drop. The screen-shot given
below, displays the default view configurations of the New Contact Form.
Customize Look & Feel
The Customize tab offers a variety of layout and themes to customize
the appearance of your forms and views. Layouts and Themes
can be combined together to create a visually appealing website.
- A layout is the arrangement of the Forms and Views in a Zoho Creator
application. Select the required layout for your application
from the Customize -> Choose Layout tab.
- Select Choose Layout
- Let us select the Tab layout as shown in the screen-shot
below.
- Themes are the colors, fonts, and background images making up the
style of your forms and views. You can pick from a range of themes from
the Customize -> Choose Theme tab and also create your own
customized themes, to suit your requirements. For example, let us select the Gradient theme with the required
color and click on Apply.
- Select Customize -> Rearrange Links to arrange the
forms and views under different sections or to add new sections. By default, all the
forms and views will be listed under the Home section. Here, we have added a new section named
Add New Contact and placed the "New Contact" form
under this section. Similarly, we have placed the New Contact view
under a new section named View Contacts.
Access the application
Now, we are done with creating the application and customizing the look. Let us access the application and add some data to see how this works. To access the application....
- Click on
button.
- Add a sample contact record and click Submit.
- View the record by selecting the View Contacts tab. The
record submitted to the New Contact form will be displayed in the
New Contact View, as shown in the screen-shot below:
Share with users
By default, the application will be 'Private'. The owner of the application can share the entire
application -or- can share few form(s)/view(s). Users must have a Zoho Creator account to access the application shared to them.
Steps to share the application:
- Go back to Edit mode by clicking on Edit this application
button displayed on the header of the application
- Click on Share Tab
- Select the New Contact form and click on Share to Users.
If you want to share the entire application with users (i.e.) all
the forms and views of the application, you can select the My Contacts
section and then add users.
- Add the list of e-mail address of people with whom you want
to share the application
- If you want to send them an invitation, select the checkbox Send
Invitation.
- Click Share, to share the Contact form. The shared e-mail
addresses will be listed under Shared Details.
 Note: |
The number of users with whom the application is shared,
depends on your subscription plan. The Account Settings
option displayed on the top right corner in application edit mode
and in the Home page, will display your current plan details and
the list of shared users.
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That's it. Hope you found this tutorial useful. Get started now by creating a application for you need. Get in touch with support@zohocreator.com for any help.
To get started with Deluge Script, the in-built scripting language, refer this link - Getting Started with Deluge Script
