INPUT (Wizards)VTML 2

INPUT declares an input control on a Wizard page; the NAME and PARAM attributes provide a mechanism to 'bind' the control to a Wizard parameter.

The following subjects are covered in this document:


Related information about VTML and WIZML:

Tutorial
The Visual Tool Markup Language (VTML)
Reference
VTML reference - overview
Context
VTML for Wizards
PAGE
Related tags
PARAM

top

Tools

INPUT plays a role in the following VTML-driven tools:

  1. Wizards

top


Location

This tag can occur only within a PAGE tag in a Wizard profile file.

top


Function

Declares an input control on a Wizard page; the NAME and PARAM attributes provide a mechanism to 'bind' the control to a Wizard parameter. More about how this works in the section Bound Controls

top


Syntax and Attributes

<INPUT .../>
NAME Required. Name of the form control to which the INPUT is bound.
PARAM Name of the parameter to which the INPUT is bound. The default value is that of the NAME attribute.
DEFAULT Default value for the input.
REQUIRED True/False or YES/NO (can be the result of a dynamic expression). Determines whether the input is required.
VALIDATIONMSG A message to display to the user if the input is required and a value is not entered. Recommended.
LISTCONTENTS If this is a DropDown or ListBox based control, then a comma-separated list will be used to populate the list with values.

top


Usage Notes

REQUIRED
If the REQUIRED attribute on a WIZARD PARAM is set to "true" this will only cause the Finish button to remain disabled until this PARAM (and all other required parameters) has a value; setting REQUIRED="true" on an INPUT tag has a more direct (but possibly irritating) effect in the user interface: when the control the INPUT is bound to does not have a value when the user tries to move to the next page, an error message dialog will pop up; the text of this message is defined in VALIDATIONMSG (see below).

Since the REQUIRED attribute for an INPUT tag does not disable the Next button, it is advisable to also create some sort of visual marker for required fields so the user will know which input is required before hitting this type of error message when trying to move on to the next page.

You have the choice of setting REQUIRED on the PARAM, on the INPUT, or both (disabled button as well as an error message when moving on from the page). See also the section on Dynamic expressions in tags.

VALIDATIONMSG
Recommended when the flag REQUIRED is present. Defaults to "The required parameter [NAME] was not entered. Please enter this value before proceeding.", where [NAME] is the name of the Wizard PARAM.

top