Overview: Editor
About the editor
The editor is where you build your survey: the survey in the middle, the controls you need around it. It is the first of the three survey flow steps in the top bar of every survey: Editor, Share and Results. Every change saves by itself.
1. The top bar
Everything that concerns the whole survey, in one row. From left to right: the LimeSurvey logo (back to the workspace), the purple + (add a question or a question group), the survey title (click it to rename the survey), the survey flow steps Editor, Share and Results, Saved at with the time of the last change, the ... menu (Navigate, View, Tools, Help), the eye icon (Preview), the green Activate button (Reactivate once a survey has been stopped) and Upgrade.
2. The left toolbar
The panels for the whole survey, one click away. Each icon opens a panel next to the toolbar:
- Structure: the Structure panel, number 3 in the picture. See Overview: Survey structure.
- Settings: General, Privacy policy, Participant settings, Publication & access and Notifications & data. See Overview: Survey settings.
- Presentation: Theme options and Presentation. See Overview: Themes.
- Menu: the survey menu with the classic pages, for example participants, email templates, quotas, assessments and resources. See Overview: Survey menu.
- Permissions: what other users of your survey site may do in this survey. See Survey permissions.
- Translations: the texts of your other survey languages. The icon stays grey until the survey has a second language. See Run a survey in several languages with Quick translation.
- Help us with your feedback: the green icon at the bottom asks two quick questions about your experience.
3. The Structure panel
Your whole survey at a glance. The panel shows the survey as a tree: the welcome screen, the question groups with their questions, and the end screen. Click an element to jump to it in the editorial area. The ... menu next to a question offers Check logic, Duplicate question and Delete question.
4. The editorial area
Edit the survey the way participants see it. Welcome and end texts, question texts, subquestions and answer options are all edited in place, with rich text formatting. To move the selected question, use the up and down arrows next to it.
5. Question settings
The settings of the selected question, simple or advanced. Select a question and its settings open on the right, in two tabs. Simple has the question code, the type, Mandatory (On, Soft, Off), Show in statistics, a background image and the Condition designer. Advanced groups everything else under General, Display, Logic, Other, Statistics and Timer.
Tip: Close the panels you don't need with the X in their header. The editorial area gets the space.
When the survey is ready
Activate it and share it. Click the green Activate button in the top bar. From then on the questionnaire is frozen: you can't add or delete questions or groups, and the data settings lock. The survey then continues under Share.