Create a Rich Text Page

You can create a guide to help end-users get around your application. Or, perhaps, you need to have a project scope document available for everyone on your team. Sure you could attach a document to a record, but maybe you'd prefer to make this information more central.

In this situation, try adding a rich text page to your application. Rich text pages are simple HTML documents that you can create and save within your application. Doing so is a breeze, because rich text pages feature an easy-to-use HTML editor. It works like a regular word processor and lets you spiff up your document with nice fonts and colors. You can even create hyperlinks to pages and forms in your application or anywhere out on the Web.

You can also include an image in a rich text page (read how).

Tip: If you're a coding maven, you can create the same kind of page without interference from the HTML editor. Just create a text page instead.

To create a rich text page:

1. Within the menu on any application page, select Customize > Application.

2. Click the Pages tab.

3. Click New page.

4. In the dialog box that displays, select Rich Text, and click Create.

   QuickBase displays an HTML editor in which you can compose your application guide.

5. Name your guide.

   Type in a name for the page that will live behind the scenes in QuickBase, like guide.html or help_for_supervisor_role.html.  Do not use spaces or unusual characters like ampersands, pound signs or dashes.

   Note: This is not the title of your guide that end users will see. (You specify the title that users see later, when you post the guide to the end-user Help menu.)

6. Write the guide.

   Most of this Edit Page screen is the blank slate on which you'll create your masterpiece. Start typing and formatting as you would in any word-processing program. QuickBase takes your creation and (behind the scenes) turns it into HTML.

   Tip: Since the rich text editor is really an HTML editor, you can also compose in HTML code. To switch to code view, click once in the document, then click the HTML button in the middle of the editor's toolbar. Then type or paste in whatever HTML code you want to use. Click the button again to switch back to page view.

   This editor lets you create two kinds of hyperlinks. You can:

   • Link to an external web site. Type some text (like "click here"), then highlight it and click the Insert Web Link button. An Insert Link dialog box opens. Type in the URL of the destination Web site. This needs to be the full Web address, including http and so on. In the Title box, type in the text that you want QuickBase to display when a viewer passes their mouse over the link. If you want the link to open the destination page in a new instance of the browser, click the Target dropdown and select New Window (blank).

   • Link to a page in your application. Type some text (like "add a task"), then select the text and click the QuickBase Link button. Within the Select link type menu that displays, select one of the following three types:

     • Add. Select add and QuickBase displays a submenu of tables in your application. Select a table, like Tasks for example and the button will be an Add Task button. When a user clicks on it, QuickBase will open the Add Tasks form.

     • Go to page. If you've saved a Text page within your application, you can link to it with a button. You can even link to another Dashboard page. To do so, select Go to page and then choose the page you want to link to.

     • Show report. Click this option and QuickBase displays a list of all the reports in your application. Select any one of them as the destination for your button.

     
     Create a beautiful and helpful guide in this HTML editor.

7. Click Save & Done to save changes to the page and return to the Pages tab.

8. If your new text page is meant to be a guide to your application, post the guide to the end-user Help menu.

Related Topics

• Adding an image to a rich text or text page