| 主权项 |
1. A method of creating a form object usable by a form user to capture and analyze data, comprising:
in a first design operation, responding to input from a form designer to create a form representation of a form and saving the form representation as part of the form object, the form representation being displayable to a form user and including an arrangement of form elements selected by the designer and having respective sets of possible data selections from which the form user will select to create corresponding actual data selections; automatically creating a grid representation of the form based on the form representation and saving the grid representation as part of the form object, the grid representation including an array of cells corresponding to the form elements and sets of selections, the array of cells being organized in a first dimension according to the arrangement of the form elements and being organized in a second dimension according to the possible data selections in the sets of possible data selections; and in a second design operation, responding to input from the form designer to (i) identify properties and assign respective property values to selected cells of the array, the property values being user-visible in association with the respective cells in a properties view of the grid representation, and (ii) create functions for performing calculations using the actual data selections and corresponding property values to yield derived values, the property values and functions being saved in the form object so as to automatically generate the derived values at a later time when the actual selections are provided by the form user. |
