Multi-Line Text Box with Tabs

[EricC]

I have a field on one of my printOne forms. The field is named 'Employees' and it is a muti-line text box.

 

I want the user to enter the Employee Name, followed by a TAB, followed by the employee's extension. Then I want a dot leader ( ..... ) to appear between the two.

 

So for example:

 

Mike Jones ............. 122

Robert Smith .......... 128

Sheri Mauro ............ 120

 

I want the numbers on the right to line up (i.e. right-justified tab)

 

Now, as far as I know, on a web form, you cant present the user with a multi-line text box and expect the TAB key to function properly.

 

If the user presses TAB, the web browser moves the focus to the next field. That's not what I want.

 

I want the user to be able to type:

Mike Jones[TAB]122[Enter]

Robert Smith[TAB]128[Enter]

Sheri Mauro[TAB]120[Enter]

 

Is this possible?

 

I DID notice the following ...

If the user types:

Mike Jones<t>122

 

IT WORKS!

However, I need to assume that 80% of the people that place print orders off of my site will not take the time typing those three characters ... < t > ... in between each employee name and the extension.

 

Does anyone know a good solution to this problem?

 

One thing that would be real cool, is if printable could write some sort of user input control that looked like a GRID (in other words, a blank Excel spreadsheet), in which the user can enter the employee name, and then in the cell next to it, the extension. And below that, the next employee's name and extension, etc.

 

Then take that data, throw it into an array and then use FusionPro/JavaScript to turn that into 2 'columns' or tabs.

[mhilger]

Hello Eric,

 

We do have an exciting and yet unannounced enhancement coming to the FusionPro Web product which will be a great solution to this. We'll surely share some additional details as we get closer to release of this new functionality (targeting later this year).

 

For the moment, here's the deal. The multi-line text boxes in FusionPro Web cannot support the use of the TAB key to actually input a tab in the middle of the text. This is a limitatation of HTML and browsers themselves (TAB always brings the user to the next input control or other element in an HTML page).

 

As you discovered, the use of the <t> command is an option. This is the FusionPro tagged markup tag for tabs so it results in a tab being inserted.

 

Another option (agreed - this isn't much better) is to ask the user to enter a custom command of your choosing into that text field. A JavaScript rule can replace this custom command with the appropriate FP tag <t> as needed.

 

For example, say you want to use a custom command for tabs of "TABHERE". The user would then enter the following into the multi-line text box:

 

Mike JonesTABHERE122

Robert SmithTABHERE128

Sheri MauroTABHERE120

 

You would then have a JS rule that would take that field value and replace it with the <t> character. Something like this:

 

fieldVal = Field("PeopleList");
fieldVal = ReplaceSubstring(fieldVal, 'TABHERE', '<t>');
return fieldVal;

 

Make sure "Treat returned strings as tagged text" is selected for this rule.

 

Then, to inform the user in the Store about what they need to enter into the text box to get the tab, you can add a form note on that field. BTW - you could just tell them in the form note that they can enter <t> and not have to go with the custom command and JS solution listed above.

 

As I said, this is less than optimal but a better solution is in the works!

 

hth.

[EricC]

Hi Mark,

In this post, you mentioned "We do have an exciting and yet unannounced enhancement coming to the FusionPro Web product which will be a great solution to this"

 

Was this new enhancement ever released? If so, what is it?

I'm still facing this challenge.

[mhilger]

Eric,

 

We were looking to add this functionality to the Rich Text Editor that we introduced last year but the TAB capability didn't make the cut for that release.

 

I entered an enhancement for this (internal case number is FPW-17281, if you want to refer to that with your CPM) to support the Tab key in the editor. I'll also discuss it with my Engineering team.