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Creating Input UI Controls with Advisor

Use the following procedure to create input UI controls.

To create input UI controls with Advisor

1. Create a Feature table whose Description values populate the control.

   For more information, see Process of Creating Advisor Feature Tables.

2. In the Pageset screen, select a pageset.
3. In the Input UI tab, click New.

   A new row appears.

4. Enter the sequence number in which the control is laid out on the page.

   Enter a number relative to the numbers you entered for other controls to determine the sequence in which the control appears on the Input portion of the page. Enter numbers such as 10, 20, 30 and so forth. This allows you to later position a control between existing controls.

5. From the drop-down list, select the control type. They are:
   • Check box

     Allows a user to select one or more features by checking one or more of these controls. For check boxes, your Feature table should contain only two rows. The first row must have a CODE value of F, FALSE, or 0 to indicate the unchecked state. The second row must have a CODE value of T, TRUE, or 1 to indicate the checked state. The DESC value from the TRUE row is used as the label for the check box in the UI.

     The following example references four Feature tables with two rows each.
   • Get Text

     Allows a user to enter a text string.
   • List Box

     Allows a user to select from a drop-down list of values.
   • Radio

     Allows a user to select one feature from two or more features by clicking one of these controls.
   • MAP

     Allows a user to assign different links to different parts of the same image using HTML.

6. Enter a label for the control. For example, for a list box of colors, enter the label "Select Interior Color."
7. Click Feature Table to open a picklist and select the Feature table whose Description values populate the control.
8. For textbox controls, enter a name.

   Because text boxes do not map to Feature tables, a name is required to reference this control.

9. Enter a height and width for the control if applicable.

   The number you enter in Height specifies the number of visible rows for the list box. The default value, 1, creates a drop-down list.

   The number you enter in Width specifies the number of characters visible in the default browser font.

10. Select or deselect the Prefill check box to determine the width of a list box.

    If Prefill is selected, the value you entered for Width is used to determine the width of the list box (if the specified width is shorter than the longest item in the list, the box uses the width for the longest item in the list instead). If you deselect Prefill, the list uses the width for the longest item in the list.

11. Supply the Map Filename, Map Shape, and Map Coordinates columns for image maps.

    The feature table specified in the Input UI record must contain three columns that hold the values for the Map Filename, Map Shape, and Map Coordinates. The column names (IMAGE, SHAPE, COORDS, for example) in the feature table are entered in the corresponding fields. These three columns populate the following HTML constructs:

    • Map Filename populates the filename specified in the <IMG SRC> tag used in the image map. CA.jpg is an example of a map filename. This image must reside in the PG directory for the project.
    • Map Shape populates the parameter for the SHAPE attribute in the <AREA> HTML tag. POLY is an example of a map shape. Refer to an HTML reference book for all the SHAPE attributes.
    • Map Coordinates populates the parameter for the COORDS attribute in the <AREA> HTML tag, for example, "9,67,37,76,30".
12. Click Generate to add the new UI controls to the Input UI display page.

    NOTE:  It is recommended that you build your UI using the Input UI and Output UI tabs in Advisor. Once the functionality in your application is set, it is recommended that you customize your UI in a third party HTML editor. If you do use a third party HTML editor, any custom code you write between the BEGIN GENERATE HTML and END GENERATE HTML comments are deleted in the pg|pageset_1.htm file whenever you regenerate the UI. Be sure to write any custom code outside of this area.