Field types |

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Field types will allow us to ask the respondent for any free text he might want to enter or we want to receive. Field types range from very basic text boxes to complex field types like ranking fields or constant sum fields. It is also very easy to create new field types using the online type editor.
Following field types are available :
Field based types share following properties :
- Answer Text is the text that will be shown next to the field.
- Image URL we can give an image URL (http://www.mydomain.com/myimage.gif) in order to show it instead of showing the answer text.
- Type allows us to change the current type of the answer we want in our survey. Respondent answers already collected will not be deleted if we change the type.
- Respondent Display Behavior allows us to define how the type will be rendered to a respondent. We can either choose to show / hide the panelists answer, to allow a new entry by the respondent or to make it read only for existing panelist answers. This feature is only available when the type is linked to a panel attribute.
- Default Text Value allows us to set a default value inside the text box field. It is also possible to fill the text box with a default value coming from an external source using following tags :
##yourquerystringvariablename## will set the default text with a query string variable's value.
@@yoursessionvariablename@@ will set the default text with a session variable's value.
&&yourcookievariablename&& will set the default text with a cookie variable's value.
%%servervariablename%% will set the default text with a server side variable's value.
- Watermark Text allows us to define a watermark information text which will be shown to the respondent within the field before he enters his information. Note that the watermark is not saved as a response if respondent doesnt enter anything within the field and keeps it "blank". This feature is only available when the survey rich client mode has been enabled from the survey settings page.
- Pipe Alias allows us to specify an alias that we can use in other questions to pipe the text box field value.
- Mailing Pipe Alias is the alias that we can use inside our survey invitation body. The invitation engine will replace the given alias by its corresponding panelist value while sending the invitation. This feature is only available when the type is linked to a panel attribute.
- Reporting Alias is the text that can be shown instead of the answer text inside our reports.
- Extended Report Filter we will be able to use directly the text answers of the respondent as a filter for our reports.
- Fixed Display Order allows us to stick the answer's display order and to avoid taking part in the randomization process of the answers. This feature is only available if we have turned on answer randomization on the question of the answer type.
- Regex Server Side Validation allows us to choose one regular expression from the regular expression library to validate the respondent entry.
- Field Entry Max Length allows us to limit the number of characters that the respondent can enter in the field.
- Mandatory us to stick the answer's display order and to avoid taking part in the randomization process of the answers.
- Forbid Duplicates will check if the respondent entry has already been entered and saved for this answer on another form entry.
- Field Width overrides the width of the field answer type that has been setup in the answer type editor.
- Field Height overrides the height of the field answer type that has been setup in the answer type editor.
Let us choose from piping, dynamic content or external values we want to include in the text at runtime.