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Design for Windows is a forms package for the '90s. Like any of today's forms software, JetForm gives you an easy way to design and do quick form filling. What's different is that it's the only forms package you can set up in a client/server configuration. The competition can't touch some of JetForm's intricate fill-in capabilities on a network using JetForm Server, a separately sold product that comes in DOS and OS/2 LAN versions. On the downside, JetForm can be too complex, and its implementation is incomplete in places.
In this review, we look at JetForm Design (which includes filler capabilities) and the OS/2 version of JetForm Server. We used the scoring criteria from our June 26, 1989 (page 55), product comparison of forms software.
FEATURES:
The packages that comprise JetForm's family of form products include Design (the primary program), Filler, Merge, and Server. JetForm Design comes with both Windows and DOS versions of JetForm Filler. You can purchase extra Fillers separately (as you'll need more copies of the filler software than design).
JetForm Design also includes a template creation program and JetForm Merge, a command-line utility for merging JetForm forms with independent data files.
For form design, JetForm's toolbox lets you place logos and draw lines, boxes, arcs, and circles. You can customize any of these elements in a variety of ways, including changing the line width, line pattern, radius, angle, and shading. You also use the toolbox for creating text and modifying it. You can justify, edit, rotate, and shade text, or change the font and margins.
You can configure program preferences, such as automatic recalculation or whether to display logos (switching this off quickens screen redisplay).
For your forms' fill-in fields, you can specify the fonts, justification, line spacing, margins, and number of lines and characters the end-user is allowed. To further aid users, you can attach a detailed help message for each field. You can also provide a default lookup for the field, assign the next field to be filled in, and supply information through which JetForm can either calculate or simply validate a field entry (including providing an error message). Through calculation and validation, JetForm can look up and fill in information from a database file; the program comes...