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Overview

This is a single line text entry field. The initialization value is set by the 'value' property. The 'value' property is also used to receive input in a Rich UI application through field binding.

Validation (Rich UI Only)

(Input link to validation and error messages page under Input Widgets section)Please visit the Validation and Error Messages page.

Field Binding Dialog (Rich UI Only)

(Input link to Please visit the Field Binding page under Widget section).

Input Type (Rich UI Only)

The 'input type' property can be used to set the 'type' attribute of the HTML <input> element that is rendered for the textbox. Input types are primarily useful for mobile applications, as the mobile device will display a different version of the keypad based on the value (i.e. numeric entry, telephone number, etc.) However, some of these options are supported by HTML5 capable browsers. If this field is not set a standard textbox element will be used by default.

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URL - The url type is for input fields containing a URL address. For mobile browsers this field allows your device to recognize the email type and change the on-screen keyboard to match (giving .com options depending on the device).

Auto-Complete Choices

Auto-complete allows your textbox field to automatically suggest choices based on text entered into the textbox.

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2. Database-Driven Auto-Complete - See Database-Driven Auto-Complete section below.

Database-Driven Auto-Complete

This section allows choices/values to be retrieved from a database file.

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Choices database file - Enter the database file to use to populate populate your options/values. When setting your database file it's not required to qualify with library name, although you can. if the library is omitted, the application job's library list will be used.

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You can also use SQL expressions to return information in addition to just selecting database fields from the file. So in the example, using the expression TRIM(CNAMEDBLNAM) || ', ' || CATIDDBFNAM allows us to return a concatenated search value with formatting for our search, but the returned value to the application is unchanged.

This is what the SQL expression returns:

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Max Choices
The max choices property allows you to set the number of choices you will see from your database-driven selection. There is no limit to the number of choices you can show, however if there is no limit set the default is 10.

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This property when set to true looks for records that contain your search text. When set to false the query looks for your at the start of the records to match your search text. The default for this is set to false.

Dynamic Auto-Complete

Choices URL

The choices URL property allows you to use an external program to return your choice options and values by passing them using JSON formatting. A PHP script would be one example of a custom program used to pass the values to your application. When using the choices url URL property, all database-driven auto-complete properties are ignored.

Good JSON Syntax Successful Response Example

These are values returned from an auto-complete textbox in a good example of JSON formattingsuccessful response from the external program:

{
    "success": true,
    "response": {
        "colWidthsresults": [
            41,{
            7
        ],
        "results": [                "PNAME": "QUEST BOREAL",
                "PRID": "523"
            },
            {
                "00001PNAME": "Alpineaire Food, 58QUEST ECLIPSE",
                "CATIDPRID": "58524"
            },
            {
                "00001PNAME": "Altimiters,QUEST 13EQUINOX",
                "CATIDPRID": "13525"
            }
        ],
        "colWidths": [
            30,
            {
                "00001": "Avalanche Gear, 82",
                "CATID": "82"
            }
        ]
    }
}

PHP Error Example

10
        ]
    }
}

In the successful response you can see the fields PNAME, PRID are being set by the script and the values returned in the successful JSON. The additional colWidths is setting the column size of the widget when multiple fields are being returned (this is optional).

This is how the successful response is displayed in the application. The search criteria (Q in the example below) is posted to the program as field query.
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JSON Error Response Example

This example is JSON information returned when the script encounters an error with an external program driven auto-complete.

{
    "success": false,
    "errorId": "08001",
    "errorText": "Authorization failure on distributed database connection attempt. SQLCODE=-30082"
}

If you are unable to get any information to display on your choice URL script you can use the showErrors() API to try and debug the reason the auto-complete is unable to display results.
showErrors() API Documentation

Example of the showErrors() API displaying the JSON error response example:

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Full PHP Script Example:

<?php

  define("MAX", 10);
  define("DB", "S100450A");
  define("USER", "user");
  define("PASS", "password");

  $records = array();
  $query = "";
  $limit = 0;
  if (isset($_REQUEST["query"])) $query = $_REQUEST["query"];
  if (isset($_REQUEST["limit"])) $limit = intval($_REQUEST["limit"]);
 
  if ($query != "") {
    
    $query = strtoupper($query) . "%";
    if ($limit == 0 || $limit > MAX) $limit = MAX;

    // Example of error reporting.
    $con = db2_connect(DB, USER, PASS, array("i5_naming" => DB2_I5_NAMING_ON));
    if (!$con) {
    
      $response = array(
      
        "success" => false,
        "errorId" => db2_conn_error(),
        "errorText" => db2_conn_errormsg()
      
      );
      
      print json_encode($response);
      return;
    
    }
    
    // The following will not be error checked, for brevity.
    $stm = "select distinct pname, prid from rpgspcart/prodp where pname like ? order by pname";
    $stm = db2_prepare($con, $stm);   
    db2_bind_param($stm, 1, "query", DB2_PARAM_IN, DB2_CHAR);
    db2_execute($stm);
    
    $count = 0;
    while (db2_fetch_row($stm) && $count < $limit) {
    
      $record = array();
      $record["PNAME"] = trim(db2_result($stm, "PNAME"));
      $record["PRID"] = trim(db2_result($stm, "PRID"));
      
      $records[$count++] = $record;
    
    }

Returned JSON Error Example

This is the information returned using JSON formatting to report an error with an auto-complete textbox. This was passed from the example above.

{
 
  }
 
  // "colWidths" is optional, this helps the widget to
  // size the columns when multiple fields are displayed.
 
  $return = array(
 
    "success": => falsetrue,
    "errorId":response" => array (
      "08001results" => $records,
    "errorText": "Authorization failure on distributed database connection attempt. SQLCODE=-30082"
}

If you are unable to get any information to display on your choice URL script you can use the showErrors() API to try and debug the reason the auto-complete is unable to display results.
showErrors() API Documentation

Example of the showErrors() API displaying the JSON error example:

...

      "colWidths" => array(
        db2_field_precision($stm, "PNAME"),
        db2_field_precision($stm, "PRID")
      )
    )
 
  );
 
  print json_encode($return);
 
?>  

Auto-Complete Results Template

The auto-complete results panel is built using a preset HTML template that is built into the product. CSS classes are attached to allow for custom styling. For complete control over the output, a custom HTML template can be assigned using the "results template" property. This property accepts an HTML fragment that will be inserted into the results panel for each returned record. In the HTML template, a field name within parenthesis will be replaced with the actual field data when the results HTML is generated.

For example, to make each record display as a block with 2 lines that display one field each, the "results template" property could be set to the following: 

<div class="autocomplete-item">
  <div class="autocomplete-col"><strong>Label one:</strong> (MYFIELD)</div>
  <div class="autocomplete-col"><strong>Label two:</strong> (MYFIELD2)</div>
</div>

The CSS classes assigned can then be used to control styling such as borders, etc.