Display Types

Button

When a user clicks on a field with a display type of button, it is expected that some action will take place.  These actions need to be defined with custom code within the ExtraView environment.  To create a custom button, you will create a field within the data dictionary with a display type of Custom.  Custom code must be defined to perform the action.  Functions are available within the custom code environment to detect when a custom button is clicked and from there your code must handle the action.

Checkbox

Currency

Custom

ucValue = Z.userCustom.ucRenderEmbeddedObject( dbconn, session, layoutType,
dde, ddName, selectedVals, selectedVal, multipleVals, attributes, prefix,
le, row, styleVal, doHiddenInput);

The returned value ucValue is a String. For fuller details on this display type, please see the User Custom Guide. However, it is worth noting here that almost any code can be generated into your layouts with this display type.

Date

Note: Microsoft SQL Server has a limitation in that any date before 1753 is invalid and cannot be stored, and calculations based on dates before this are invalid. If your installation is running on SQL Server, this is a limitation that ExtraView cannot work around.

Users who have write permission to date fields on add and edit screens and whose personal date format is set to exclude time, for example using SHORTDATE, can still enter time into a date field.  The popup calendar will supply the time automatically, but the user can override this.  This avoids problems between users when some are using a personal date format that contains time, while others use a personal date format that excludes time.

Day

Note: Microsoft SQL Server has a limitation in that any date before 1753 is invalid and cannot be stored, and calculations based on dates before this are invalid. If your installation is running on SQL Server, this is a limitation that ExtraView cannot work around.

Decimal

Document

You can control the file types being uploaded as documents with an option within the data dictionary.

Use the Upload file type list option to block or allow specific file extension types.  Note that this may be case sensitive or case insensitive.  Following this, enter a comma-delimited list of the extension types to allow or block within the File extensions entry field.

HTML Area

Image

Label

As an alternative, you can use label fields to display informative or explanatory information on an add or edit screen.  To achieve this, you use the Display Text field within labels in the Data Dictionary.  This field supports rich text.

List

Log Area

When there is more than one entry within a log area fields, sort icons will appear by the user’s name and timestamp of the first entry.  The user can use these to resort the comments in different directions.  Use the LOG_AREA_INITIAL_SORT behavior setting to determine the direction of the initial presentation.

Log area fields may be entered on forms and presented on existing entries and reports as rich text, when the prompt Present as HTML is set to Yes in the data dictionary definition for the field. This option is not available on log area fields which are defined for repeating rows.

It is not recommended that you place log area fields on repeating record layouts. Each entry in a log area field is preceded by a header that shows a combination of the user’s name, the user’s company name, the timestamp of the comment and a sequence number for the comment. See the text for the behavior setting named LOG_AREA_TEMPLATE to adjust the presentation of log area fields.

Note: If a user does not have read permission to the security permission key named PR_RESOLUTION.ASSIGNED_TO, then they will not see the name of the person who created the entry to the log area. This is useful if you want to allow customers or guests to see the comments made, but to not know who made the entry.

You can make the size of the log area field auto-size to the amount of text in the field, by adding a layout cell attribute of onkeyup=autoSize(this);. This attribute will only apply to the layout within which it is set. With this attribute, the number of rows that the field occupies will increase automatically as the user enters additional text.

Number

Pop-up

Multi-valued popup fields can be created.  These may be presented on the user interface to appear either horizontally or vertically.  This is set with an option on the field within the data dictionary, Display Format,  When the field is displayed as a Horizontal Delimited List, all selected values are presented on a single row with a sumi-colon delimiting each value.  When Vertical Presentation is selected, each value is presented on a separate row.  Images associated with each list value are only displayed when using the Vertical Presentation.

Print Text

Radio Buttons

Horizontal Radio Button

Vertical Radio Button

Radio buttons will use a list of values to create a set of buttons on the screen. The user can select only one value from the list when they are filling in an add or edit screen. You must create at least two values for the field to function properly. It is usual to select one value as a default value. This will be the selected value when the form is first displayed. Horizontal radio buttons are rendered across the screen on both add and edit forms. Vertical radio buttons are rendered down the screen on both add and edit forms.  On query screens, the radio button will act like a single-valued list field, and the results on reports will look just like results from a single-valued list field.

Like all other field types that render a list-like object, the default rendering of a radio button will include a value option of * None * in the list.  However, a global attribute is automatically added to a newly created radio button, to Remove the * None * Entry from the field. You may delete this attribute if you do want a * None * entry within the field when it’s displayed.

Within a Quickedit session, radio buttons are rendered as list fields, as the amount of space occupied by a radio button with many values may cause navigation problems within the Quickedit session. Also, within a Quickedit session, a value of * None * is added to the list, even if there is a layout cell attribute with a value of Remove None. This ensures that the first value in the list is not selected automatically when it has no value.  Radio buttons are treated as list fields internally within ExtraView, but there are very few occasions when you want the default * None * value to be displayed.

Radio buttons have two ways in which they may rendered on the screen.  Further, it is possible to set a “toggle” option, allowing the user to deselect a radio button, as opposed to only allowing them to select values.

Standard style radio button

Box style radio button

Note that when you display radio buttons on the ExtraView Mobile app, radio buttons are always displayed with the box style.  Standard radio buttons are most often too small to select with a finger.

Tab

Example of a tab field

When you create a new Tab field in the data dictionary, it is strongly recommended that you add a global attribute of REMOVE NONE, so that the * None * value does not appear on the row of tabs that are generated. If you want the Tab field to default to a specific value, you should set a default value for that tab.

Text Area

Text Field

Encryption

Text fields may be encrypted.  To achieve this, you must set up a keystore with the encryption key(s) and decide which fields are to be encrypted within the data dictionary, on a field-by-field bsais.  Note that with encryption, less than 1,000 characters may be stored in a text field.  The precise amount of characters being stored varies with the encryption algorithm, but the encrypted fields typically require more than double the amount of characters in the unencrypted value.

Telephone Number Formatting of a Text Field

There is a built-in function that can be applied to a text field to apply standard formatting for US-style telephone numbers. To enable this feature on a text field, you create either a data dictionary global attribute or a layout cell attribute with the following HTML modifier:    onkeyup=formatAsPhoneNum2(this) In addition, set a layout cell attribute of SIZE = 15 to ensure the phone number is of the correct number of characters. If you create the attribute as a global attribute within the data dictionary, there is no need to add the layout cell attribute to each layout that uses the function. There is a deprecated telephone format using an HTML modifier function of formatAsPhoneNum(). This should no longer be used as it does not work within all browsers. If you require the formatting of a telephone number in a different way, or if you require the formatting of any text field in an efficient way, it is recommended that you write a user JavaScript function and call this from an HTML modifier on the field.

Time Interval

User

The inbuilt fields assigned_to, originator, owner and contact are User fields. User Lists displaying these fields will display the first_name and last_name or the user ID, depending on what is set in the USERNAME_DISPLAY property as the behavior setting. You can define a User Defined Field with the display type User. This will generate a list populated with a list of active users in the system. If the behavior setting named USER_LIST_DISPLAY has a setting of POPUP, then user fields have an attribute that allows type-ahead, or auto-complete. You can set from 1 to 5 characters that are entered before triggering the presentation of the closest matches to the characters you have typed into the field. Note: If your installation is configured to use an LDAP connection with the behavior setting named LDAP_USER_LOOKUP having a value of YES, when auto-complete is configured, only users that are currently stored within ExtraView are returned with auto-complete, as opposed to all potential users in the LDAP server.  This prevents a potential performance issue, returning a huge number of records from the LDAP server to ExtraView, whenever a user presses a single key.

User fields may be configured with images to accompany the name of the user.  The images are sourced from each user’s account where the user can upload their photograph.  The way in which the fields are rendered on forms is different, according to whether the field is single- or multi-select.

Single Select User Fields		Multi-Select User Fields
	Selecting values in a single select user field with images is very similar to their usage when no images are present.  Simply click on the input field and select the name of the user.  Note there is also a search box into which you can start typing the name of the user you are searching for and the list will be pared down to those that contain the characters you have entered.  You can then click on your selection. You can use the X at the right of the list to delete the user.		When you first view a multi-select list, you may either start to enter the characters of the name, or use the icon to the side of the list to bring up a search dialog.  As you enter the characters, a list of matching names that contain these characters will be displayed.  This is the second image to the left.  Select the first name.  To select further entries, click on the entry field again and search box appears into which you can start entering the name of the next user to add to the list.  Select the user by clicking on their name. You can use the X at the right of the list to delete a user.