Defining text box control properties

To define the properties of a text box control, select the text box control icon in the Form definition window and edit the text box control’s properties in the Properties window. As you specify properties that have an effect on the appearance of the form, the preview pane of the New Form window is updated to show the change.

Property	Description
RefName	RefName of the component. REQUIRED. For rules about the use of RefNames, see RefNames
UUID	String that uniquely identifies the component across all databases, trials, and machines. Note that the InForm Architect application automatically capitalizes UUID strings that contain lower-case characters. OPTIONAL, not needed for text box controls.
Caption	Specifies the text of the caption that appears on the screen with the component. OPTIONAL.
Caption Alignment	Specifies the position of the caption relative to the controls that make up the component. You can specify Left (the default), Right, Top, or Bottom. OPTIONAL.
Height	Specifies how many lines of text the control displays. Default is one OPTIONAL.
Length	Specifies how wide the text box is in characters. To make all characters visible (that is, to avoid making users scroll to see all the text), make sure that this value is greater than or equal to any value you specify for the Max Length property. REQUIRED.
Max Length	Specifies how many characters a user can enter into the text box. If Max Length is greater than Length, the InForm application scrolls the extra characters. The default is the length specified in the Length property. OPTIONAL.
Data Type	Type of data a user can enter into the text box: Float, Integer, or String. String is the default. OPTIONAL.
Precision	Specifies the number of characters a user must enter after the decimal point, if you specified Float in the Data Type property. OPTIONAL.
Min Value	Specifies the minimum range of the value entered in the text box. OPTIONAL, available if the Data Type is Integer or Float.
Min Property	Specifies the operator to use in comparing the value entered in the text box with the value specified for Min Value. You can specify GreaterThan or GreaterThanOrEqual. For example, if you specify 50 as the Min Value and GreaterThanOrEqual as the Min Property, a data item must have a value of 50 or more, or the InForm application generates an error message. The use of the Min Value and Min Property takes the place of a range-checking rule on the item. REQUIRED if you specified a Min Value property for a text box control with a Data Type of Integer or Float.
Max Value	Specifies the maximum range of the value entered in the text box. OPTIONAL, available if the Data Type is Integer or Float.
Max Property	Specifies the operator to use in comparing the value entered in the text box with the value specified for Max Value. You can specify LessThan or LessThanOrEqual. For example, if you specify 100 as the Max Value and LessThan as the Max Property, a data item must have a value less than 100, or the InForm application generates an error message. The use of the Max Value and Max Property can take the place of a range-checking rule on the item. REQUIRED if you specified a Max Value property for a text box control with a Data Type of Integer or Float.
Units	Specifies the unit type, if you want a user to be able to choose the units associated with the value entered in the text box. Click the check box associated with each type of unit to display. For information on how to create a new unit type, see Defining units. OPTIONAL.
Unit Display Type	If you selected a unit type, use the Unit Display property to select how units are displayed: Element (the default)—Displays a single unit type as a label. Pulldown—Displays multiple unit types as a pulldown list from which a user can select. Radio—Displays multiple unit types as a set of radio buttons from which a user can select. OPTIONAL.
Design Note	Free-form text, with a maximum of 255 characters, containing any information you want to capture about the design of the component. This information is for documentation only. OPTIONAL.
Selection Value	Visible only when the control is added as a child control in a radio group or checkbox group. Specifies the value of the child control stored when a user selects the control. OPTIONAL. If you do not specify a selection value, when a user selects the control in the radio group or checkbox group, the value stored in the database is a string consisting of the characters !pf! and the DBUID path of the selected control.