How To Topic

Creating a Popup Interview

When you want to gather information from your template users outside the main flow of your interview, you can use a popup interview based on a script link and a computation.

Prerequisites

• Create a template (for example, DOCX)
• Create variables within the template
• Create a dialog to ask some of the variables
• Create a computation that uses the ASK instruction to present a dialog or variable in a popup interview

To create a popup interview

1. Open Component Studio.
2. Open the dialog from which you want to pop up a "child" interview.
3. On the toolbar at the bottom of either the Contents or Layout tabs of the Dialog Editor, click Create Script Link Dialog Element. The New Script Link Dialog Element then appears.
4. The following tasks are optional:
   • (Optional) Replace the default Name with a more descriptive one

For convenience, if you leave the default Name (Script_Link), as you select or create the required computation, HotDocs appends the name of the computation to the end of the default name. For example, Script_Link becomes Script_Link_askLastName as you create a computation called askLastName.

1. • (Optional) Use the Script drop-down to select the computation that defines your popup interview. Alternatively, type the name of a new computation and click the Edit button to create it
   • (Optional) From the Type drop-down, select the form you want the script link to take on the "parent" dialog:
   • • Button – in the interview, displays a rectangular push button bearing the Text or Image (cropped to the Size—width and height) you set. If you don't change the Size settings, the button appears at a default size
     • Hyperlink – in the interview, displays as a blue and underlined hyperlink Text, or as a clickable image without a border
   • (Optional) Choose either:

7. 1. 1. Text  – type the text you want to display on the button or as a hyperlink
      2. Image  – use the Browse button to add the image you want to display on the button or as a hyperlink

5. When you have finished the optional tasks click OK.
   1. If you just created the computation, open the computation.
   2. On the Script tab of the Computation Editor, type ASK, then a space, then the name of the dialog or variable you want to appear in the popup interview.