Presentation
Show a form as a chat, or one question per screen.
Every form can be shown two ways. Chat is a conversation: the questions arrive as messages and the answers sit in a thread. One at a time shows each question on a screen of its own, centred, the way Typeform and Tally do.
It is one setting. The questions, logic, agent, answers, results, exports, webhooks and integrations are the same either way, so you can switch a form back and forth without losing anything.
Choosing it
In the builder, open Design. The Layout section at the top has the two choices. The pill on the left of the Build toolbar shows which one the form uses and opens that section.
Over the API it is the settings.presentation setting, chat or steps:
curl -X PATCH https://api.chatform.in/v1/forms/$FORM_ID/settings \
-H "x-api-key: $CHATFORM_SECRET_KEY" \
-H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"changes": [{"key": "settings.presentation", "value": "steps"}]}'A change reaches new respondents once you publish. Someone already part way through finishes in the presentation they started in.
One at a time
| Setting | Key | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Transition between questions | theme.transition | rise |
| Speed | theme.transitionSpeed | medium |
| Advance on select | settings.steps.autoAdvance | on |
| Letter keys on options | settings.steps.letterKeys | on |
The transitions are rise, fade, drift, drop, pan, pop, breathe,
blur, stack, wipe, tumble and none, at slow, medium or fast.
Going back plays the transition in reverse. Anyone whose device asks for less
motion sees a short fade instead.
Welcome and statement blocks become screens with a button. In a chat they are said and the conversation moves on.
The agent still talks. A follow-up, a reply to a question the respondent asked, or a request for a missing detail appears as a short note on the question it is about. A refused answer shows its reason under the answer box. In Agentic mode with rephrasing on, the agent's wording becomes the question's title.
Pictures. A question's image can sit above the question, beside it or behind it, set in the question's Screen image. Background picture in the Layout section goes behind every screen.
Keys. Enter presses OK. Letters pick options, Y and N answer yes or no, numbers pick a rating. Up arrow or Shift+Tab goes back, down arrow moves on from a question already answered, Escape skips an optional question. On a phone, a quick swipe up or down does the same as the arrows.
Going back shows the previous screen with its answer filled in. OK keeps it, or change it first. Allow going back in Settings turns this off.
Embedding
Embeds work the same in both presentations. An inline frame for a form shown one at a time looks best at least 500px tall, because each question is centred in the space it has.
Headless
/v1 sessions follow the presentation too. On a form shown one at a time, a
welcome or statement block arrives as the question, and the
continue and back actions move between screens.