Properties
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Properties |
The Properties sidebar (screenshot below) enables properties to be defined for SPS components selected in the Design View.
The Properties sidebar is divided into two broad parts:
| • | The Properties For column, in which the selected component types are listed. One of these component types may be selected at a time and properties assigned for it. (In the screenshot above, the paragraph component is selected.) For detailed information about how components with properties are grouped, see the section Components and their Property Groups below. |
| • | The Property Definitions column, in which component properties are defined for the component type selected in the Properties For column. The Property Definitions column can be displayed in three views (see below). For the details of what properties are in each property group, see the section Property Groups below. |
Three views of Property Definitions
The Property Definitions column shows the properties of the component selected in Design View. The display is available in three views (listed below) and can be switched between each other by clicking the respective buttons in the toolbar of the Entry Helper:
| • | Grouped  : The properties are organized into groups. In this view, the Property Definitions column is divided into three columns: Group, Attribute, and Value. All the available property groups are displayed in the Group column. When a group is selected, the properties of that group are displayed in the Attribute column. If a value for a property is defined, the value appears in the Value column. |
| • | List All  : All properties of all groups are listed in a single alphabetically ordered list. The Attribute column is listed first, followed by the Group column and then the Value column. |
| • | List Non-Empty  : Only properties that have values defined are listed. The columns are ordered, from left to right, as follows: Attribute, Group, and Value. In this view, it will not be possible to define a value for a new property—because no undefined property is listed. However, this is a quick way to see all the defined properties for the selected component type, and the displayed properties can be edited. |
Views can also be changed by right-clicking any item in the Property Definitions column, selecting View Mode, and then the required view.
Reset toolbar icon
Clicking the Reset icon 
resets the value of the selected property to its default.
Components and their property groups
The availability of property groups is context-sensitive. What property groups are available depends on what design component is selected. The table below lists SPS components and the property groups they have.
Component |
Property Group |
Template |
Authentic |
Content |
Authentic; Common; Event |
Text |
Common; Event |
Auto-Calculation |
AutoCalc; Authentic; Common; Event |
Condition Branch |
When |
Data-Entry Device |
Authentic; Common; [Data-Entry Device]; Event; HTML |
Image |
Image; Authentic; Common; Event; HTML |
Link |
Link; Authentic; Common; Event; HTML |
Table |
Authentic; Common; Event; HTML |
Paragraph |
Paragraph; Authentic; Common; Event; HTML |
The following points about component types should be noted:
| • | Template components are the main template, global templates, and all schema nodes in the design. |
| • | Content components are the content and rest-of-contents placeholders. These represent the text content of a node or nodes from the XML document. |
| • | A text component is a single string of static text. A single string extends between any two components other than text components, and includes whitespace, if any is present. |
| • | Data-entry devices are input field, multiline input fields, combo boxes, check boxes, radio buttons and buttons; their properties cover the data-entry device as well as the contents of the data-entry device, if any. |
| • | A table component refers to the table structure in the design. Note that it contains sub-components, which are considered components in their own right. The sub-components are: row, column, cell, header, and footer. |
| • | A paragraph component is any predefined format. |
The table below contains descriptions of each property group.
Property Group |
Description |
AutoCalc |
These properties are enabled when an Auto-Calculation is selected. The Input Formatting property specifies the formatting of an Auto-Calculation that is a numeric or date datatype. The XPath property specifies the XPath expression that is used for the Auto-Calculation. |
Authentic |
These are SPS-specific properties that are available for templates, contents, AutoCalculations, data-entry devices, images, links, tables, and paragraphs. What properties within the group are available are component-specific. For more details, see Authentic Node Properties. |
Common |
The Common property group is available for all component types except the Template and AutoCalc component types. It contains the following properties that can be defined for the component: class (a class name), dir (the writing direction), id (a unique ID), lang (the language), and title (a name). |
Data-Entry Device |
Specifies the value range of combo boxes, check boxes, and radio buttons. Note that this property group does not apply to input fields and buttons. |
Event |
Contains properties that enable JavaScript functions to be defined for the following client-side HTML events: onclick, ondblclick, onkeydown, onkeypressed, onkeyup, onmousedown, onmousemove, onmouseout, onmouseover, onmouseup. |
HTML |
Available for the following component types: data-entry devices; image; link; table; paragraphs. Note that there are different types of data-entry devices and paragraphs, and that tables have sub-components. These properties are HTML properties that can be set on the corresponding HTML elements (img, table, p, div, etc). The available properties therefore vary according to the component selected. Values for these properties can be selected using XPath expressions. |
In addition, there are component-specific properties for images, links, paragraphs and other predefined formats, and condition branches. These properties are described in the respective sections.
Property values can be entered in one, two, or three ways, depending on the property (see screenshot below):
| • | Entered directly in the Value column. To do this, select a property, double-click in its Value column, enter the value using the keyboard, and press Enter or click anywhere in the GUI. |
| • | By selecting a value from the dropdown list of the combo box for that property. Click the down arrow of the combo box to drop down the list of property-value options. |
| • | By using the Edit button  at the right-hand side of the Value column for that property. Clicking the Edit button pops up a dialog relevant to that property. For example, the sidebar for the Format property in the screenshot below pops up the Input Formatting dialog, while that for the XPath property pops up the Edit XPath Expression dialog. |
For some properties, in the Common and HTML groups of properties, XPath expressions can be used to provide the values of the property. The XPath icon 
toggles on and off the application of XPath expressions as the source of property values. With a property selected, if the XPath icon is toggled on, then an XPath expression can be entered for this property and the return value of the XPath expression is used as the value of that property. In this way, the value of a node in an XML document can be returned, at runtime, as the value of a property. When the XPath icon is toggled off, a static value can be entered as the value of the property.
Modifying or deleting a property value
To modify a property value, use any of the applicable methods described in the previous paragraph, Setting Property Values. To delete a property value, select the property and click the Reset icon in the toolbar of the Properties sidebar.
See also:
Styles, for a description of how styles can be assigned to the selected component.
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