Rich Text
The Rich Text control enables you to display formatted text from page sources in which the text is marked up with formatting (styles). Furthermore, on web clients and Windows PC clients, text in a Rich Text control can be edited and formatted, and saved back to the page source. For a broad description of the Rich Text feature, see the section Design Object/Features | Rich Text.
•To reset a style or property (in the Styles & Properties Pane), select the property and click Reset in the pane's toolbar. •To edit the XPath expression of a style or property (in the Styles & Properties Pane), select the style or property, and click Edit XPath in the pane's toolbar. •To copy a control to another location in the design, press Ctrl and drag-and-drop the control to the desired copy location. |
Rich Text events
The OnFinishEditing event is available. For a description of the actions that can be defined for this event, see the Actions section.
Rich Text properties
The control's properties are available in the Styles & Properties Pane, and are listed below in the order in which they appear.
The name is used to reference the control from elsewhere in the page or project. Double-click inside the value field to edit.
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The All Styles property becomes visible if the All Styles setting of the More Project Settings dialog has been set to true. (The default of this setting is false.)
The property enables you to set all of the component's styles via a single XPath map expression, such as the two map expressions below:
map{ "Bold Text" : $XML1/R/@bold = "1", "Italic Text" : true(), "Text" : "hello", "Text Color" : "red", "Background Color" : $XML1/R/@background, "Text Size" : $XML1/R/@textsize }
map{ "Style Sheet" : "Sheet-1" }
Note the following points:
•When you enter a value for the All Styles property—even if it is not a map—all the styling properties of the current component in the Styles & Properties Pane will no longer be visible . •This is an advanced feature, so you must ensure that your XPath map expression is correct, both syntax and values. •You can enter the key–value pairs of the map in any order. •The key names are the names of style properties (or styles). In the first map above, for example, Bold Text and Text Size are style names. The styles that are available for a particular component are listed under that component in the Styles & Properties Pane. •You can also specify a style sheet to use, as shown in the second map above.
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The Text property takes as its value one of the following:
•A fixed value text string to be displayed in the control •An XPath expression that retrieves data from a node in a page source and displays this data in the control
Double-click inside the value field to edit, or click the XPath toolbar button and enter an XPath expression to generate the required text. Alternatively, right-click the property and select the entry method you want from the context menu (fixed-value or XPath).
Note: In the Rich Text control, you can enter an XPath expression that is an HTML-encoded string. If styles for HTML elements have been defined in the active Rich Text style sheet, then the text value of this property will be displayed with the appropriate formatting. See the Rich Text section for more information.
Note: The $MTControlValue variable is not available for the generation of the value of the Text property. If used, then a validation error results.
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An XPath expression that should evaluate to true() or false(). If the expression evaluates to false()—and only if it evaluates to false()—then the control is not visible. If the expression evaluates to true() or returns some other value, then the control is visible. The default is true(). Double-click inside the value field, or click the XPath button, to enter or edit an XPath expression. The Visible property can be used to render an object visible or not depending upon whether an XPath expression evaluates to true(). As a result, the display of an object can be made to be dynamically dependent on the content or structure of data.
Note: For information about the visibility of spanned columns/rows, see Table Properties.
Note: The $MTControlValue variable is not available for the evaluation of the Visible property. If it is used, then a validation error results.
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The control is either enabled or disabled, according to whether the value of the property is true (enabled) or false (disabled). The value can be entered directly (by selecting it in the combo box or by double-clicking in the value field and entering the value you want). The value can also be an XPath expression that evaluates to boolean true or false. The default value is true. Typically the XPath expression of the Enabled/Editable property of a control would check the presence or value of a node. If the expression evaluates to true, the control will be enabled.
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Sets the text that appears as a tooltip when the end user hovers over the control with the mouse or long presses the control. A tooltip provides useful information to the end user about the control. Double-click inside the value field to edit. If an action has been set for a long press of the control, then no tooltip will be shown on a long press.
Note: Tooltips are not available on all controls, and for some controls they are not available on all platforms. On iOS, tooltips are not available for Edit Field or Signature controls.
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Provides a textual hint to the end-user. For example, the hint could be about an action that the end-user has to carry out by using the control. Double-click inside the value field of the property to edit the textual hint, or click the XPath toolbar button and enter an XPath expression to generate the required text.
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Sets the text color of the hint for the control. This text color will be the color of the text that is defined for the Hint property (see above). You can do one of the following to select the color:
•Click the color palette to select a text color •Select a color from the dropdown list of the combo box •Double-click in the value field to enter a color code (for example, #FF0000), or click the XPath toolbar button and enter an XPath expression to generate the required text.
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Specifies which of the design's Rich Text style sheets is to be used for the layout of text in the Rich Text control. The dropdown list of the property's combo box displays all the project's Rich Text style sheets (created via the Rich Text Style Sheets dialog).
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This property applies in the case of some controls (such as images and vertical lines) to the control, in other cases (such as radio buttons and check boxes) to the text that accompanies the control. The property sets the horizontal alignment of the control or text to left, center, or right. Default is left for all controls except vertical lines, for which it is center. The property's value can also be specified via an XPath expression (which enables the value to be generated dynamically).
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Sets the vertical alignment to top, middle, or bottom. Default is middle. The value can also be specified via an XPath expression (which enables the value to be generated dynamically). For Check Box controls, the property sets the vertical alignment of the check box relative to its text if the text is multiline (see the Multiline property)
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Sets the width of the control. Select a value from the property's combo box. The following values are available:
•fill_parent: makes the control as wide as the parent, which could be, for example, a table cell or the page •wrap_content: makes the control only as wide as the control's content requires; when this value is selected, the property Max Control Width becomes available •wrap_content_longest_entry: is available for combo box controls and makes the combo box as wide as the longest content requires; when this property value is selected, the property Max Control Width becomes available •percent value: a percentage of the page width; select a value from the dropdown list, or enter a value directly •pixel, dp, or sp value: select a pixel, dp, or sp value from the dropdown list, or enter a value directly
In effect, fill_parent creates a maximum width, while wrap_content creates a minimum width. If the combo box is within a table cell, for example, fill_parent would let the combo box fill the cell whereas wrap_content might not fill the cell.
The default value is fill_parent for all controls except the following:
•Image and Chart: For these, the default is wrap_content. •Geolocation Map: The default is the smaller of the two values $MT_CanvasX and $MT_CanvasY. These two dynamic variables give, respectively, the width and height of the device's viewport. Since the default of both Control Height and Control Width are the same (in each case, the smaller of $MT_CanvasX and $MT_CanvasY), the default shape and size of the viewport in the control will always be a square with side equal to min($MT_CanvasX, $MT_CanvasY).
For information about the relationships between pixels, dp (device-independent pixels), and sp (scale-independent pixels), see Sizes: Pixels, DPI, DP, SP.
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This property is available only when the control's Control Width property has been set to wrap_content. The Max Control Width property sets the maximum width of the control. Select a value from the property's combo box. The following values are available:
•percent value: a percentage of the page width; select a value from the dropdown list, or enter a value directly •pixel, dp, or sp value: select a pixel, dp, or sp value from the dropdown list, or enter a value directly
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Specifies the height of the Rich Text control. The default behavior (wrap_content) is for the height of the control to increase as content increases, up to a maximum of the screen height on devices and browser window on web clients. When the maximum height is reached, the content part of the control displays a scrollbar; the toolbar part is fixed at the top of the control. Alternatively, you can set a fixed height (in pixels, dp, or sp) for the control.
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Sets the margin offsets of the control (or page) relative to the surrounding objects or to the borders of the containing object. Select a value in pixels, dp, or sp from the dropdown list of the combo box, or double-click in the value field to enter a length value. The specified offset will be created on all four sides of the control or page. If you wish to set a different margin for any of the four sides, expand the Margin property to display the individual margin properties (left, right, top and bottom), and set the different value. For example: If you set Margin to be 6px and Margin Bottom to be 12px, then the top, left and right margins will be 6px and the bottom margin will be 12px.
For information about the relationships between pixels, dp (device-independent pixels), and sp (scale-independent pixels), see Sizes: Pixels, DPI, DP, SP.
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The Tab Order property takes an integer as its value, or an XPath expression that evaluates to an integer. This integer number is the position of the control in the tab order sequence.
The tab order is the sequence in which controls receive the focus when the client-device user taps the Tab key. The entire tab order sequence can be set quickly and in the visual context of all controls of the page via the Page | Show/Define Tab Order menu command. The Tab Order property of individual controls sets the sequential position of that control only.
Note: The Tab Order feature is available on Web and Windows clients only.
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The Style Sheet property sets the style sheet to use for the control. The dropdown list of the Style Sheet property's combo box displays all the user-created style sheets that have been defined in the project. Select the style sheet you want to use for the control. Alternatively, you can use an XPath expression to select the style sheet you want; this has the advantage that you can make the selection of the style sheet conditional (see Applying User-Created Style Sheets). See the section Style Sheets for more information.
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The name of one or more CSS classes that you want to associate with this control. Use a space to assign multiple classes: LabelClassOne LabelClassTwo. These classes can then be used in a CSS file (specified in the Browser Settings dialog) to assign properties specifically for this control. You can also use an XPath expression to generate or fetch the names of the class(es).
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