Field Editor: Place a Dialog in the Interview (ASK)

In the Field Editor, under Other Operations, you click Place a Dialog in the Interview to add an instruction field containing an ASK instruction.

The ASK instruction tells HotDocs to display the dialog you name at that location in the interview.

You can also use this instruction field to ask a variable.

Common Task

The Field Type element of the HotDocs Field Editor declares whether the currently selected HotDocs Field is a placeholder field or an instruction field.

Element	What it Does
Dialog or Variable Name	Enables you to select a dialog or variable. You can select an existing component using the drop-down list or type in a new one. Click the edit button to open that component for editing. If you select a variable, which is linked to a dialog, HotDocs displays the whole dialog when it reaches the ASK instruction during assembly.

Select the Advanced Properties expander to see further properties for the field:

Property Name	What it Does
Preserve empty paragraph	Enables you to force HotDocs to keep an empty paragraph left behind when HotDocs removes a HotDocs field when assembling a document.
Comment	You can use this to add notes about the field. A field with a comment attached displays a grey C next to the field name on the template.

At the bottom of the HotDocs Field Editor, you have access to the following actions:

Buttons	What it Does
Add Field	Adds the placeholder field to the template in the selected location.
Navigation	When a placeholder field is selected, navigation buttons show. Use < and > to navigate to the next HotDocs field. When a conditional instruction is selected, such as ELSE IF, navigation buttons help you to match the corresponding instructions, such as END IF.
Delete Field Button [X]	Selecting anywhere in a HotDocs field causes the Delete field button to appear. If you select outside a HotDocs field, or include anything besides a single HotDocs field, the button disappears (if it was previously visible), or else does not appear. Clicking the Delete field button removes the selected field completely. Clicking Microsoft Word's Undo button restores the field completely. The Delete field button exists to solve a particular problem: In Microsoft Word, you can delete a HotDocs field by clicking in the field, then clicking the field's handle, and then pressing the DELETE key on the keyboard. However, if you select the field using only the keyboard, Word does not easily enable you to delete the field. You can do so by deleting all the content of the field and then pressing the DELETE key again, or if your cursor is just to the right of the field, you can press the Backspace button once to select the field's content, a second time to delete the content, then a third time removes the field. HotDocs provides the Delete field button to simplify this process.