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The TEXT control represents a multi line text edit control. It represents the value of an adapter property.

The following topics are covered below:

- Example

- Using the max* Properties

- Properties

## Example

The XML layout definition is:

    <rowarea name="Text">
        <itr>
            <text valueprop="longText" rows="7" cols="30">
            </text>
        </itr>
    </rowarea>

## Using the max* Properties

This section explains when and how to use the following properties:

`maxlength`/`maxlengthprop`
`maxrows`/`maxrowsprop`
`maxrowlength`/`maxrowlengthprop`

The rule of thumb is: `maxlength`/`maxlengthprop` supports a completely different use case than `maxrows`/`maxrowsprop` in combination with `maxrowlength`/`maxrowlengthprop`. Never use all three.

If you simply want to limit the total number of characters that your end users are allowed to enter, use `maxlength`/`maxlengthprop`.

If you prefer that your end users enter their input line by line with a fixed line length and no automatic word wrapping, use `maxrows`/`maxrowsprop` in combination with `maxrowlength`/`maxrowlengthprop`.

## Properties

Basic
valueprop | Server side property representation of the control. | Obligatory |
width | Width of the control. There are three possibilities to define the width: (A) You do not define a width at all. In this case the width of the control will either be a default width or - in case of container controls - it will follow the width that is occupied by its content. (B) Pixel sizing: just input a number value (e.g. "100"). (C) Percentage sizing: input a percantage value (e.g. "50%"). Pay attention: percentage sizing will only bring up correct results if the parent element of the control properly defines a width this control can reference. If you specify this control to have a width of 50% then the parent element (e.g. an ITR-row) may itself define a width of "100%". If the parent element does not specify a width then the rendering result may not represent what you expect. | Sometimes obligatory | 100 120 140 160 180 200 50% 100%
height | Height of the control. There are three possibilities to define the height: (A) You do not define a height at all. As consequence the control will be rendered with its default height. If the control is a container control (containing) other controls then the height of the control will follow the height of its content. (B) Pixel sizing: just input a number value (e.g. "20"). (C) Percentage sizing: input a percentage value (e.g. "50%"). Pay attention: percentage sizing will only bring up correct results if the parent element of the control properly defines a height this control can reference. If you specify this control to have a height of 50% then the parent element (e.g. an ITR-row) may itself define a height of "100%". If the parent element does not specify a width then the rendering result may not represent what you expect. | Optional | 100 150 200 250 300 250 400 50% 100%
flush | Flushing behaviour of the input control. By default an input into the control is registered within the browser client - and communicated to the server adapter object when a user e.g. presses a button. By using the FLUSH property you can change this behaviour. Setting FLUSH to "server" means that directly after changing the input a synchronization with the server adapter is triggered. As consequence you directly can react inside your adapter logic onto the change of the corresponding value. - Please be aware of that during the synchronization always all changed properties - also the ones that were changed before - are transferred to the adapter object, not only the one that triggered the synchonization. Setting FLUSH to "screen" means that the changed value is populated inside the page. You use this option if you have redundant usage of the same property inside one page and if you want to pass one changed value to all its representation directly after changing the value. | Optional | screen server
flushmethod | When the data synchronization of the control is set to FLUSH="server" then you can specify an explicit method to be called when the user updates the content of the control. By doing so you can distinguish on the server side from which control the flush of data was triggered. | Optional |
datatype | By default, the control is managing its content as string. By explicitly setting a datatype you can define that the control will format the data coming from the server: if the field has datatype "date" and the user inputs "010304" then the input will be translated into "01.03.2004" (or other representation, dependent on date format settings). Please note: the datatype "float" is named a bit misleading - it represents any decimal format number. The server side representation may be a float value, but also can be a double or a BigDecimal property. | Optional | string n xs:string
comment | Comment without any effect on rendering and behaviour. The comment is shown in the layout editor's tree view. | Optional |
Appearance
width | (already explained above) |  |
displayonly | If set to true, the FIELD will not be accessible for input. It is just used as an output field. | Optional | true false
direction | Presets the default(BiDi) direction of the control. Use black string in order to have the default value. | Optional | rtl ltr
displayprop | Name of adapter property that controls whether the field is displayonly(true) or not (false). By using this property you can dynamically control the "display"-status of the control by your adapter object. | Optional |
statusprop | Name of the adapter property that dynamically passes information how the field should be rendered and how it should act. | Optional |
wrap | Specifies the line wrapping inside the control. By default a line that exceeds the width of the control is broken automatically. You may define this property to not wrap at all ("off") - in this case the text control offers horizontal scroll bars to scroll the text. There are two styles of wrapping "soft" and "hard". The difference between "soft" and "hard" is the way the text is - if changed by the user - passed back to the adapter property: when specifying "soft" then line breaks which are caused by wrapping are not sent to the server, when specifying "hard" then line breaks caused by wrapping are sent as carriage return/ line feed. - Be carefule when specifying "hard" as consequence! The wrap attribute is not part of the HTML standard. It depends on the browser if wrap=hard/soft are supported. | Optional | soft hard off
rows | Height of control specified by number of rows. Either define the height by the HEIGHT property or by the ROWS property. Do not specify both! When specifying the height by ROWS then be aware of that the height depends from the font size used inside the control (that is defined in the styles sheet definition). | Optional |
cols | Width of control specified by number of characters. Either define the width by the WIDTH property or by the COLS property. Do not specify both! When specifying the width by COLS then be aware of that the width depends from the font size used inside the control (that is defined in the styles sheet definition). | Optional |
colspan | Column spanning of control. If you use TR table rows then you may sometimes want to control the number of columns your control occupies. By default it is "1" - but you may want to define the control to span over more than one columns. The property only makes sense in table rows that are snychronized within one container (i.e. TR, STR table rows). It does not make sense in ITR rows, because these rows are explicitly not synched. | Optional | 1 2 3 4 5 50 int-value
maxlength | Maximum number of characters that a user may enter. This property is not depending on the LENGTH property - please do not get confused by the similar naming. MAXLENGTH has nothing to do with the optical sizing of the control but only with the number of characters you may input. | Optional | 5 10 15 20 int-value
maxlengthprop | Name of adapter property that passes back the maximum number of characters that a user may enter. Consider to use MAXLENGTH to define this number in a static way. | Optional |
maxrows | Maximum number of rows. No automatic wrapping is done. Don't use this in combination with maxlength/maxlengthprop. | Optional | 20 50 100 200 500 0
maxrowsprop | Name of the adapter property that dynamically sets the maximum number of rows. | Optional |
maxrowlength | Maximum number of characters in a row. No automatic wrapping is done. Don't this in combination with maxlength/maxlengthprop. | Optional | 5 10 15 20 int-value
maxrowlengthprop | Name of the adapter property that dynamically sets the maximum number of characters in a row. | Optional |
rowspan | Row spanning of control. If you use TR table rows then you may sometimes want to control the number of rows your control occupies. By default it is "1" - but you may want to define the control to span over more than one columns. The property only makes sense in table rows that are snychronized within one container (i.e. TR, STR table rows). It does not make sense in ITR rows, because these rows are explicitly not synched. | Optional | 1 2 3 4 5 50 int-value
textareastyle | CSS style definition that is directly passed into this control. With the style you can individually influence the rendering of the control. You can specify any style sheet expressions. Examples are: border: 1px solid #FF0000 background-color: #808080 You can combine expressions by appending and separating them with a semicolon. Sometimes it is useful to have a look into the generated HTML code in order to know where direct style definitions are applied. Press right mouse-button in your browser and select the "View source" or "View frame's source" function. | Optional |
title | Text that is shown as tooltip for the control. Either specify the text "hard" by using this TITLE property - or use the TITLETEXTID in order to define a language dependent literal. | Optional |
titletextid | Text ID that is passed to the multi lanaguage management - representing the tooltip text that is used for the control. | Optional |
titleprop | Property of adapter that dynamically defines the title of the control. The title is displayed as tool tip when ther user moves the mouse onto the control. | Optional |
bgcolorprop | Name of adapter property that passes back a color value (e.g. "#FF0000" for red color). The color value is used as background color in the control. - The color of the text color is automatically chosen dependent from the background color: for light background colors the text color is black, for dark background colors the color is white. Use FGCOLORPROP to choose the text color on your own. | Optional |
fgcolorprop | Name of adapter property that passes back a color value (e.g. "#FF0000" for red color). The color value is used as text color in the control. - The background color is automatically chosen dependent from the text color: for dark text colors the background color is transparent (default), for light text colors the color is black. Use BGCOLORPROP to choose both - the text and background color. | Optional |
scroll | Definition of the scrollbar's appearance. You can define that the scrollbars only are shown if the content is exceeding the control's area ("auto"). Or scrollbars can be shown always ("scroll"). Or scrollbars are never shown - and the content is cut ("hidden"). Default is "auto". | Optional | auto scroll hidden
tabindex | Index that defines the tab order of the control. Controls are selected in increasing index order and in source order to resolve duplicates. | Optional | -1 0 1 2 5 10 32767
Binding
displayprop | (already explained above) |  |
statusprop | (already explained above) |  |
titleprop | (already explained above) |  |
bgcolorprop | (already explained above) |  |
fgcolorprop | (already explained above) |  |
maxlengthprop | (already explained above) |  |
maxrowsprop | (already explained above) |  |
maxrowlengthprop | (already explained above) |  |
Online Help
helpid | Help id that is passed to the online help management in case the user presses F1 on the control. | Optional |
title | (already explained above) |  |
titletextid | (already explained above) |  |
titleprop | (already explained above) |  |
Miscellaneous
testtoolid | Use this attribute to assign a fixed control identifier that can be later on used within your test tool in order to do the object identification | Optional |

### On this page

- Example
- Using the max* Properties
- Properties