How to customize form design so that user complete view without scrolling the form many times

Frappe Framework Customization
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how to customize form design so that user complete view without scrolling the form many times

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Hi all,
I would +1 this.
At the moment to do either invoice or Purchase Receipt or JV the windows it opens take more than the whole screen. We should not have to scroll up & down while filling the form (see screenshot). Each new windows should fit on a normal computer screen.

Screen Shot 2015-08-29 at 10.25.31.png1202Ă—571 71.6 KB

Could we try to condense it by using more colum breaks on one line / section, we could easily fit 5-6 columns on one line / section.

Best,

François

3

Hi,

Please note that you can re-arrange the fields by using the Customize Form View and adding more column breaks.

But please be adviced that adding more columns would not look neat on the mobile devices.

@Francois_Ifitwala you have given a screen shot of an app which runs mainly on the desktop (legacy kind of app) but erpnext AFAIK is mainly designed with mobile output in mind as well.

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@adityaduggal Can you give more space to the central canvas on which the columns are displayed because all I see, like @Francois_Ifitwala, is wasted horizontal space. Given the shocking lack of space given to columnar data when my browser window is full of white space can only be described as a shocking waste.

If having mobile friendly software means leaving the desktop with data that could be displayed in a 1980s monitor then I think that is a sad indictment of the state of “modern” software.

All I care about when entering data is how quickly and easily I can do that. Widescreen monitors give more space horizontally therefore to design things in a vertical manner does nothing to present the data in a manner which optimises monitor space and old style software which allows quick data entry because it is been designed to maximise the use of space available is somehow considered quaint.

1 Like
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Hi @adityaduggal,
Yes I will try to re-arrange using the customize Form View. I should have thought about it.

Some parts of any ERP have definitely place on mobile device (when a salesman go on the field, yes) Read ERP information on a mobile device make sense, entering purchase receipt with 20 items on it, entering expense voucher with over 30 items makes a lot less sense. Our accountants works from computers in an office, not out of tablet in the field.

These old ERP (as the one on the screen shot) are very efficient in entering data. I am battling now to get everyone on board with ERPNext just because the amount of time it takes to enter data. We talking over 5 times the amount of time for some of our big purchase receipts.
I don’t thing it should be a mobile vs desktop debate here. Some tasks for some users will most likely be done on a mobile devices, some tasks for some other users in the company will most likely be done on a desktop.

In most decent size company, Sale invoices (not talking about POS here), Purchase receipts, JV are done from computers. ERPNext is indeed very beautiful, user friendly and very flexible, but for these doctypes (which represent the biggest part of all our transactions for a trading Cie like ours), it isn’t efficient to enter the data.

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@eamonn first of all I am not from the team and hence I have no access or say if the team would allow for more horizontal canvas but going by my experience its a strict NO-NO from the development team, basically its a trade-off between mobile and PC computing but since these days more apps are mobile friendly and hence I don’t think that the team would agree to giving more horizontal space.

@Francois_Ifitwala even I have setup up upto four columns in some of my doctypes but data entry speed is something which would increase with the usage and practice, honestly we were using a similar app in our organisation before erpnext and believe me I had to face the same questions about the speed of data entry and honestly when things are settled the users are going to like erpnext more than the legacy aaplication

For the time being I would suggest living with the current setup of limited horizontal space.

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I’am loss … Do you have access?
It is unfortunate that you are still opposing mobile friendly and PC as if one has to be done instead of the other.

I hope you are right, and I know that we will get used to it, that said it doesn’t take away the problem of efficiency… I have not yet seen accountants entering their data from a phone / tablet. There are many use for mobile device … entering data lots of data (JV, GRN, etc.) does not seem of them in our organisation.

8

Hi,

for one of my projects I am looking into ERPNext and like it very much. But I have got the same problems as stated here. I need to be able to change the form design / general layout to make it more efficient for Desktop ERP users. Are there any news on this topic ? Did anybody find a good workaround ? Is there really no way to customize the UI (eventually create new apps) ?

Any hint would be be really appreciated.

Regards and happy new year!

Thomas

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Hi @ebalu,
The way to do it is to go to “customize form”. You can type that in the awesome bar.
Then choose your form, then select what you’d like to appear and in which order from the form.

Best,

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Hi,

it seems erpnext is much developing and can be fully customize. May everyone need some ERPNext customization to make it more smooth for business. such as it was new software in market for erp but i think you may customize it very well.

Thanks
Regards,
Michal

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Try adding these to css using custom app
.clearfix {
position: absolute;
margin-top: 3px;
width: 150px;
}
.control-input-wrapper {
margin-left: 160px;
}