Harness, Section, and Flow Action forms
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A cell in a layout can present the value of a property, as display-only or as an input field. Follow these instructions to control the presentation of a property value in a Text Area control.
As of V6.1 SP2, the Text Area control uses the auto-generated control rule pxTextArea. Its look and behavior are governed by the rule form's Control tab. The Parameters tab is not available and the HTML cannot be edited. To modify the control's look or behavior, use the control's Parameters dialog within the context of the section, not the rule itself.
It is recommended that you use pxTextArea in new development rather than the non-auto-generated rule TextArea (which is supported). See About the TextArea control rule.
1. Drag and drop the Text Area control
Click the down-arrow () at the right end of the Basic control group () and select the Text Area control (). Drag the control to the cell or header that is to contain the property value. When the pointer changes shape to indicate that a single cell is selected, release the mouse button to drop the control.
If the cell is not empty, the dropped control replaces the current contents of the cell
2. Complete the Cell Properties panel — Top fields
Click the magnifying glass icon () to open the Cell Properties panel. Complete the top fields that appear.
If the panel is pinned (), the wireframe presentation on the rule form changes immediately to reflect of your inputs. If the panel is not pinned (), click Apply to apply your inputs. GRP-229
Field |
Description |
Appears only when this field is in a section included within the current open rule. Click to open the section that immediately contains the field. | |
Property |
Select or type a property reference that identifies a
single text value.
Alternatively, you can drag a property name from the lists
of properties visible in the Application Explorer. Typically,
this works for Click the pencil icon () to review the property rule (if the reference is to an existing property in the Applies To class of this rule or a parent of that class). If the property is not found, the New dialog box for the property form appears. You can reference properties on any page identified on the Pages & Classes tab, using the normal notation pagename.propertyname for pages other than the page corresponding to the Applies To class of the rule. If this field is in a cell of a section that includes parameter declarations on the Parameters tab, you can enter the notation param.NAME here, to use a parameter value for the field, where NAME identifies a string parameter. Make sure that the NAME parameter is declared on the Parameters tab, and that your application provides a non-blank value for the parameter value in all possible situations where the section appears. See Section rules — Completing the Parameter tab. |
Control |
Accept the default pxTextArea control rule. When placed in a SmartLayout field, the adjoining Label cell is populated by the standard .pyTemplateTextArea property with a value of Text Area . When placed in a repeating grid, the value appears above the control in the header cell.
Click the pencil icon () to review the control rule identified in this field. Customizing the controlThe control's default parameters are the ones you'll most likely use in your UI design for both edit and read-only modes. If you wish, you can customize the control within the context of the section that contains it. For example, you can:
Your edits apply only to the control within the section that contains it and do not update the underlying rule. You an add multiple controls of the same type within a section, each with its own custom settings. See Control Form — Completing the Control tab for descriptions of the available parameters and how to define behaviors. Do the following to customize an auto-generated control rule in a section:
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Behavior |
Optional. Leave blank if no dynamic form actions to other parts of the form are to occur based on user updates or values for this field. C-1990 To establish a dynamic form action, click the magnifying glass icon () to open the Client Event Editor in a new dialog window. Complete the Client Event Editor to select an event ( Click the help icon ( ) on the Client Event Editor for assistance. For general information on this capability, see Implementing dynamic form actions and the Client Event Editor. Client event support is not available for harness, section, or flow action rules that use directives. |
3. Complete the Cell Properties panel — General tab
Complete the General tab.
Field |
Description |
Visible: |
Select to determine when the property value is to appear.
(If this setting is not applicable, the cell contents are
blank.)
When a user submits an HTML form, an input field that is not visible is not included in the HTTP details. Don't make an input field invisible if your application expects user input on the field. MARTT 2/28/07 |
Condition |
If you selected
.Color =="Blue" .Phone !="0" (.Phone!="0")&&(.StateCode=="MA"||.StateCode=="VA"))
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Run on Client |
This field appears only if you select Other
Condition for the Visible field and a
simple expression in the Condition field.
SR-4450 SR-4339 B-21697 embeddedSelect to indicate that the Condition field contains one more property comparison tests that will be evaluated on the user workstation in response to a client event. See Implementing dynamic form actions and the Client Event Editor. C-1990 Clear to indicate that the Condition field contains a when condition rule name or an expression to be evaluated once upon initial display of the form. |
Required |
This box appears only for fields in cells on flow action
rules and section rules. Select to require that (when the
form appears at runtime in read-write mode) users cannot
successfully submit the form if the field is blank.
Selecting Required marks the label for this field with an orange asterisk () when the flow action form appears in read-write mode. (The asterisk also appears if the Label control's Value For field is not blank and the Label control's Required box is checked.) For section rules, checking this box enables client-side format validation when this section is part of a harness form that has the Enable Client Side Validation box selected on the HTML tab. At runtime, users who leave this field blank and submit the form are notified immediately that the field is required; the form is not transmitted to the server. C-1197 Don't select Required if the field is hidden or read-only. At runtime, users can see the error message but cannot alter the field. SR-4488 |
Wrap Text | Select if the text in the cell is to be presented as multiple lines when the text is longer than the cell width. If the box is not selected, the text visible in the cell may appear truncated at runtime. R-19668 |
Read-Only | Select to cause the property value to be presented in read-only mode always, or based on a when condition rule or client-side test, even when the enclosing layout is in read-write mode. PROJ-283 Complete the next field to modify the effect of this checkbox. |
Read-Only Condition |
Optional. Enter an
expression involving another property, or identify the
When Name key part of a when condition rule.
PROJ-283 Specify one of three outcomes:
This field appears only when you select the Read Only checkbox. |
4. Complete the Cell properties panel — Advanced tab
Complete the Advanced tab to control the presentation and visibility of the field.
Field |
Description |
Width |
As a best practice, use SmartLayouts to achieve uniform width of cells throughout your application's forms. You can set the width of SmartLayout templates using the Application Skin wizard. Optional. Enter a positive number for the width in pixels of this cell. (At runtime, normal browser processing for rendering tables determines the actual displayed width.) This field appears only when the cell is not controlled by SmartLayout column restrictions. In that case, you can also adjust the width this column directly:
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Height |
As a best practice, use SmartLayouts to achieve uniform height of cells throughout your application's forms. You can set the width of SmartLayout templates using the Branding wizard. Optional. Enter a positive number for the height in pixels of this cell. (At runtime, normal browser processing for rendering tables determines the actual displayed height.) This field appears only when all columns in the Layout are
not controlled by SmartLayout column restrictions (that is,
all columns have the
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Default Value |
Optional. Enter a constant value for the property value, a property reference, or an expression, to be used only when the work object form or flow action form appears in read-write mode rather than read-only mode. Click the magnifying glass icon () to start the Expression Builder. Click the pencil button () to review a property rule. Choose a default value that speeds data entry. When the system renders a harness or section in read-only mode (for example because the read-write mode requires a privilege that the current user does not hold), the default value does not appear, because data entry is not permitted. B-14313 REJECTED MARTT 4/7/06 |
Read-Write Style |
Optional. By default, when the work object form or
flow action form appears in read-only mode, the CSS style
named The SmartPrompt list shows all styles that start with the
word Click the pencil icon () to review the text file rule that defines the style sheet. Your application can override and extend this style sheet in an application text file rule. |
Read-Only Style |
Optional. By default, when the work object form or
flow action form appears in read-only mode, the CSS style
named The SmartPrompt list shows all styles that start with the
word Click the pencil icon () to review the text file rule that defines the style sheet. Your application can override and extend this style sheet in an application text file rule. |
Inline Style |
To apply inline styling to this cell only, type a CSS style definition in this field, or click the magnifying glass to access a Style Editor window. Styles you enter in this field supplement and override style elements defined in style sheets, according to normal CSS rules. Inline styles are recorded in the generated HTML for the form; they do not alter the CSS definitions. Using the Style EditorYou can select the font, color, font size, text align, vertical align, borders, margins, and other attributes of this cell using selection lists. The Style Editor maintains a preview of the resulting presentation. If you alter the style definition directly, click Apply to update the preview. Click OK to record the style defined with the Style Editor in the panel. |
Use Heading Styles | Select to change the cell HTML element from <TD> to <TH>, with a resulting style change. |
Copying, deleting, duplicating, or moving a Text Area control