Field and Table Column Properties

Field properties are displayed in the Properties View panel when a field is selected in the Fields View panel or a table column is selected in the Tables View.

General tab

Property

Description

Field name

The name of the field or table column.

Field type

Defines the field type. Select a value from the dropdown list. The default field type for new fields is Character.

Default value

The default value initially assigned to the field. The value must be consistent with the field type.

Numeric values should be entered using a period (.) as the decimal point and without comma separators e.g. 123456.99
Date values should be entered using the Date Literal Format configured in Designer Preferences

Validators

In addition to the validation of field type and mandatory fields, system validators can be used to validate data entered by the user .

Rounding

Applies only to fields of field type Numeric and Currency and specifies the rounding mode applied each time a numeric value is stored and the value contains more decimal places than the target field. The following examples assume a target field with 2 decimal digits:

· Up	Values are rounded up. For example: 2.193 becomes 2.20, 2.459 becomes 2.46, -2.193 becomes -2.20, -2.459 becomes -2.46
· Down	Values are rounded down. For example: 2.193 becomes 2.19, 2.459 becomes 2.45, -2.193 becomes -2.19, -2.459 becomes -2.45
· Ceiling	The same as Up except negative numbers are rounded down For example: 2.193 becomes 2.20, 2.459 becomes 2.46, -2.193 becomes -2.19, -2.459 becomes -2.45
· Floor	The same as Down except negative numbers are rounded up. For example: 2.193 becomes 2.19, 2.459 becomes 2.45, -2.193 becomes -2.20, -2.459 becomes -2.46
· Half up	Values less than 5 are rounded down, values of 5 and above are rounded up. For example: 2.193 becomes 2.19, 2.459 becomes 2.46, 3.455 becomes 3.46
· Half down	Values of 5 or less are rounded down, values of 5 and above are rounded up. For example: 2.193 becomes 2.19, 2.459 becomes 2.46, 3.455 becomes 3.45
· Half even	Values of less than 5 are rounded down, values greater than 5 are rounded up, values of 5 are rounded towards the nearest even number.

The default is Half up.

Decimal digits

The number of decimal digits (numeric fields only)

Event field

Indicates this field is an event field. An event field is a special type of form field that has the following characteristics:

· It is never displayed to the user

· before field and field validation events are always fired

See Events for more information on event fields.

Return field

Indicates that the field will be returned to a calling form when this form is called using the CALL FORM command. Only applies to called forms. Note that this option is required in order to receive return parameters from a called form.

URL parameter

Indicates that a value for the field can be included on the URL that invokes the form or can be passed from a calling form. The parameters button on the form toolbar gives a display of all fields with this option set. Note that this option is required in order to receive a parameter from the invoking URL.

Encrypted parameter

This option only has meaning when the URL parameter option is also selected. It indicates that an additional parameter will be passed containing an encrypted value of the parameter value. The encrypted value will be checked against the parameter value to ensure that the parameter has not been changed. (See Encryption of form parameters for more information)

Client accessibility

This property controls whether the field can be accessed by the Client API. By default a field is not accessible. See Client Accessible Fields and Tables for more information.

Presentation tab

Property

Description

Display type

Defines the display type. Mostly this corresponds to the HTML input type used to display the field in edit mode.

Display length

Defines the width of the input box as the number of characters specified – the actual size of the rendered input box will vary slightly between browsers. Initially this is set with a default value that varies according to the field type: 30 for character fields, 10 for integer fields etc.

Note that this is not the same as maximum length which is specified as a validator.

Number of rows

This applies only to fields with display type Textarea and is the number of rows displayed (The width of each row is specified by display length).

Use HTML Fieldset

This option applies only to the display of lists using either radio buttons and checkboxes. The list options will be rendered using HTML <fieldset> and <legend> tags e.g.

<legend>Choose a shipping method:</legend>

<label for="overnight">Overnight</label><br>

<label for="ground">Ground</label>

</fieldset>

This is a requirement to achieve WCAG compliance. See Designing For Accessibility.

When used in a Field Grid Layout, the HTML above will be written left aligned i.e. aligned with the field label column.

Note that when used with Bootstrap, default styling of the legend tag is supplied in the Bootstrap CSS and this applies a font-size of 1.5rem which makes the field label appear larger than usual. You may want to change this CSS.

Alignment

Specifies the alignment used to display radio buttons or checkboxes. Horizontal or vertical can be selected. This option is only available if the field has a display type of radio button or checkbox.

Label position

Specifies the position of the text element of radio button or checkbox fields. Left or right can be selected. This option is only available if the field has a display type of radio button or checkbox and it’s not available when using Bootstrap.

Show digit group separator

For numeric and currency fields, specified whether to show the digit group separator e.g. whether to show 1,000 or 1000.

Date/time options

Provides a number of options for fields with field type Date, Time or DateTime. Displays the following dialog:

Date field options (type Date only)

Display calendar

Specifies that the calendar image will be placed to the right of the date field. When clicked, a calendar popup is displayed allowing the user to select a date. Selecting this option suppresses display of the value pattern text when the Use system default option is selected.

Time field options (type Time and DateTime only)

Display time fields as

Controls the degree of accuracy displayed for time fields:

System default	Seconds (ss) and thousandths (.sss) are displayed only when their value is non zero e.g. 10:21:36.000 is displayed as 10:21:36 09:30:00.000 is displayed as 09:30 15:25:55.123 is displayed as 15:25:55.123
hh:mm	Always display as format hh:mm. Seconds (ss) and thousandths (.sss) are removed without rounding.
hh:mm:ss	Always display as format hh:mm:ss. Thousandths (.sss) are removed without rounding.
hh:mm:ss.sss	Always display as format hh:mm:ss.sss

Note that times can always be entered by the user as hh:mm:ss.sss regardless of the display format described above. See Field Types for further information.

Value pattern text options

Display value pattern text

The value pattern text displayed to the right of the field or, for table columns, beneath the column header text. This text provides information to the user on the format of data to be entered/displayed for date/time fields e.g. hh:mm:ss, mm/dd/yyyy etc. The value pattern text is only written for fields or table columns with Display type Text.

Use system default

For dates, the pattern text varies according to the formatting language currently in use e.g. U.S. dates are displayed as mm/dd/yyyy whereas European dates are more likely to be displayed as dd/mm/yyyy. In addition, time patterns are adjusted in accordance with the time field format selected in the property above.

The pattern text is not displayed for fields/columns of type Date that also have the Display calendar option above selected.

Specify value pattern text

Enter a pattern text in the Text box. This pattern text is always displayed regardless of language or time field format.

No value pattern text

The pattern text is not displayed.

The value pattern text can be styled for fields with the Value pattern text style property of Field Control, and for table columns with the Value pattern text style property of Table Control.

Contains HTML

Indicates that the field value contains formatting HTML. If the field value contains HTML and this option is not checked, the HTML will be escaped by the system and will appear as part of the data value displayed to the user. This option is only effective for display only fields.

Mappings tab

This tab shows all the resources to which the field is mapped. If no mappings exist for the field, this section will be empty. Each property row in this section represents a single mapping and contains the resource name on the left and the resource field name on the right. The resource name is the resource name as displayed in the Resources View – this is not necessarily the name of the resource entity. If the mapping was made in a component, the component name is shown in brackets after the resource name.

Lists tab

Property

Description

Static List

Associates the field with a Static List and displays entries from the list. Clicking the … button displays the Workspace Browser dialog and any Static List in the current project or any linked project can be selected. When a list is configured, hovering the mouse over the name will display the full path, double clicking on the name will open the Static List editor.

A field can be associated with a Static List or a Dynamic List but not both.

Dynamic List

Associates the field with a Dynamic List – a list obtained from a database - and displays entries from the list. Clicking the … button displays the Workspace Browser dialog and any Dynamic List in the current project or any linked project can be selected. When a list is configured, hovering the mouse over the name will display the full path, double clicking on the name will open the Dynamic List editor.

A field can be associated with a Dynamic List or a Static List but not both.

Dynamic list mappings

Displays a dialog where fields from the Dynamic List can be mapped to fields from the form. Click here for details.

When list is built

Controls when the list is built. Click here for details.

Set field with single list value

When this option is checked, a list that contains just a single entry will result in the field being set with the value prior to being displayed. This option is only available for fields with a display type of dropdown. Setting the immediate validation property on a linked Field Control or Table Column Control causes this option to be ignored.

Header text options

Options that control the text displayed at the top of the list for dropdown fields. This text also represents a null value when selected by the user. Options are:

No header text

No header text is displayed at the top of the list. The user is unable to select a null value.

System default

The system default text is taken from system text 21 (contains Please select as shipped). This text also represents a null value when selected by the user.

Use custom text

The multi-lingual text specified by the next property (Custom header text) is used.

Custom header text

When Use custom text is specified for the previous property (Header text options), this text is displayed at the top of the dropdown list. This text also represents a null value when selected by the user.

Texts tab

Property	Description
Label Text/Column Heading Text	The field label text. For table columns, this is the column header text.
Help text	The field help text. This is not available for table columns.