ATG Page Developer's Guide

dsp:textarea lets you create an extended text box that allows for multi-line input. When you include dsp:textarea in a page, put the start tag directly in front of the end tag, unless you want to include a default value. Any text between the two tags, even a space or carriage return, is interpreted as a default.

This tag must be enclosed in a dsp:form tag, which can be provided in the same page or a parent page. See Embedding Pages in Forms for instructions on the latter.

Note: The dsp:textarea tag uses the iclass attribute in place of the cascading stylesheet class attribute to avoid using a Java reserved word in Java code.

Attributes

DestinationProperty:bean(Required)

The bean attribute contains the Nucleus path, component name, and name of the property that holds the user-entered data. When this property has data, the data displays in the multi-line text box as the default unless a default has otherwise been specified.

InputName:name

The name attribute provides a name to a multi-line text box that is used during form processing. It is not necessary to include a name in dsp:textarea tags; the ATG platform automatically supplies one if none is specified.

OperationOrdering:priority

The priority attribute lets you set a dsp:textarea tag at a high priority so it is processed before other tags in a JSP. This is especially helpful when making changes to an item’s repository ID and the properties it contains. If you first update the supplemental properties and then the repository ID, the new property values can be flushed when the repository ID change occurs. The priority attribute takes an integer value. By default, priority is set to –10.

For more information on how the ATG platform can prioritize tag processing, see Order of Tag Processing

DefaultValue:default

The default attribute lets you specify default text that appears in the multi-line text box for user modification. The default attribute can hold a value such as a bean property, page parameter, or constant value. You can forgo the default attribute and instead supply default text (dynamic or static) in between the start and end dsp:textarea tags. If you use both methods, the text in the default attribute overrides the tag body content.

TagConverters

The tag converter tools let you convert a value into the format of your choice:

You can also use tag converters to require users to enter data in a specific format. For more information, see Tag Converters.

Example

<dsp:textarea bean="Student_01.disciplinaryAction" default="None"/>

This tag inserts a multi-line text box on a form page. The text box displays the default value None despite the data in the disciplinaryAction property. The default value or any changes made to it are saved to the disciplinaryAction property of the Student_01 component.