Providing a rich text environment to users is often more productive that allowing them to enter and update pure text.  ExtraView’s HTML Area and Log Area field types have an extensive range of features that go beyond text.  The key features are:

  • Formatting of text, including bold, underline and italics.  Text may be in different fonts, colors, sizes and styles.  Text may be justified to the left, right, centered or full-justified
  • Text may be indented and bulleted
  • Images may be embedded directly into the body of the field, placed there via copy and paste or by selection from files
  • Entire documents / images may be embedded within the body of the field
  • Links to web pages may be inserted
  • Tables of any number of rows / columns may be created

Note that Log Area fields must have the option to Present as HTML set to provide rich text.

When configuring new layouts, the administrator may create new fields with the HTML Area display type and to create new Log Area fields with the Present as HTML option.  When upgrading existing installations, it is possible to convert these existing Text Area and Log Area fields to utilize richh text, using the following utility.  You must be an Administrator to perform this task, and you must be able to run the Java utility that ExtraView provides to perform the conversion.  It is not recommended that you simply alter the display type of an existing field, especially if your existing data contains any references to HTML codes, as these will not appear correctly after the alteration of the field type.

  • It is strongly recommended that you take a backup of the entire ExtraView database before beginning this process and that the system is offline to users while you perform the conversion.  The utility offers the ability to back up the database table that contains the text
  • The utility must be run on one field at one time.  If you wish to convert multiple fields, run the utility once per field
  • The utility will work with Text Area and Log Area display type of fields.  After the conversion utility is run, use the data dictionary to update the display type of Text Area fields to HTML Area fields.  With Log Area fields, you enable the Present as HTML option after you run the utility
  • ExtraView provides a batch file to run the file on Windows operating systems, and a shell file to run the file on Linux/Unix operating systems
  • The following is an example of the conversion process for Windows:

    • Enter a command window
       
    • Navigate to your ExtraView root directory.  Alter the path to match your Apache Tomcat folder. The example assumes your root ExtraView directory is named evj

      cd C:\ApacheHome\apache-tomcat-8.5.12\webapps\evj\WEB-INF\data

    • If not already set up, create the following environment variables, again matching the locations to those of your system:

      set TOMCAT_HOME="C:\ApacheHome\apache-tomcat-8.5.12"

      set JAVA_HOME="c:\PROGRA~1\java\jdk1.8.0_121"

      set EV_BASE="C:\ApacheHome\apache-tomcat-8.5.12\webapps\evj"
       

    • Run the conversion utility upon the field you wish to update.  The optional -b parameter takes a backup of the fields that are being converted and stores them in a database table.  The field_name is the name of the field being converted

      doTextToHTMLConverter.bat [-b] field_name
       

    • Once the conversion program is complete, sign on to ExtraView as an administrator and alter the display type of the Text Area field you converted from Text Area to HTML Area.  With Log Area fields, you enable the Present as HTML option after you run the utility
       
    • You may also want to adjust the size of the field as it is used in various layouts, either with a global data dictionary attribute or with layout cell attributes on the individual layouts.  HTML Area fields often look better when they are wider than their Text Area counterparts.  For the standard toolbar used, a SIZE layout cell attribute of 160 is typically correct for all browsers to display the rich text correctly
       
    • Perform sample checks of the field you have converted to ensure the process was successful.