1. Ferdinand Fischer
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. Sunday, 17 November 2019 21:01 PM UTC

Hi,

will the new placeholders in SLE also be available in the datawindow?

Regards,

Ferdinanad

Miguel Leeuwe Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Sunday, 17 November 2019 23:18 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 1

Hi Ferdinand,

 

I'm on the beta R2 and I checked: I only see this new property on single line edits. Not on edit mask, nor multi line edits. To be honest, I would have expected it to be available at least also for mle, but it's not (yet?). Neither am I seeing it for columns on a datawindow, while that would be probably the most useful place to have the new property.

This is from the help file:

"Other new features related with PowerScripts or PowerBuilder objects are as below:

  • Supports Placeholder property for SingleLineEdit control -- The Placeholder property specifies a short description for the expected value of the input field. The Placeholder value can be used as a text label or hint; hence can help to reduce the number of UI controls. The Placeholder value will not be displayed, 1) if the Text property is set (the Text value will be displayed first); or 2) when the input field has focus."

Let's do a feature request?

HIH

Comment
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Sunday, 17 November 2019 23:22 PM UTC
Before anyone says we can use the "tag" property, many times, the tag property is already used for many things like when you have a dynamic translation running on labels, etc.. Not impossible to add some functionality that separates different things out of a tag string, but it would be nice to have this new feature and just use it only for what it's intended.
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mike S Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 18 November 2019 00:08 AM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 2

you can already do this on a datawindow column by using format.   

Comment
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Monday, 18 November 2019 00:12 AM UTC


Hi Mike, do you have an example for a format like that? This is new to me, unless it's based on using an expression.
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  1. mike S
  2. Monday, 18 November 2019 02:13 AM UTC
format has multiple parts - a semicolon is used as a delimiter (;). the last format is for NULL. set that format using backslash to escape each letter of the placeholder text
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  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Monday, 18 November 2019 16:08 PM UTC
Nice one!
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David Peace (Powersoft) Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 18 November 2019 16:28 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 3

Hi

You will need to use Format & Conditional Font as follows:

String:

Format: [general];String

Number

Format: $#,##0;($#,##0);-;Number

 

Date

Format: dd/mm/yyyy;\D\a\t\e

 

Apply this font:

Font Text Color: if(isnull( astring ) , rgb(198,198,198),rgb(0,0,0))

 

Hope that helps

David

Comment
  1. Michael Kramer
  2. Monday, 18 November 2019 17:37 PM UTC
Nice!
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Chris Pollach @Appeon Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Monday, 18 November 2019 17:28 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 4

Hi Ferdinand;

  FWIW ... PowerServer has already had this feature for many releases and calls it "HintText". I have opened a support ticket suggesting that Appeon use the same feature name for all products for consistency.

Regards ... Chris

Comment
  1. Chris Pollach @Appeon
  2. Monday, 18 November 2019 22:17 PM UTC
Hi Mike;

Oh my, I missed that one ... thanks! :-(

Miguel: I agree ... I think that HintText is a more meaningful name than PlaceHolder. Just my $0.02

Regards ... Chris
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  1. Michael Kramer
  2. Monday, 18 November 2019 22:30 PM UTC
Sorry to differ but I like the term Placeholder because that is the term used in HTML5.

In HTML5 the Placeholder attribute is defined for INPUT elements of type password, search, tel, text, and url. The text cannot contain line breaks.
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  1. David Peace (Powersoft)
  2. Tuesday, 19 November 2019 08:55 AM UTC
I agree, Placeholder is more universally recognised. If this was added universally it would be very useful. You would need font attributes for the placeholder too.
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Chris Pollach @Appeon Accepted Answer Pending Moderation
  1. Tuesday, 19 November 2019 15:29 PM UTC
  2. PowerBuilder
  3. # 5

Hi Everyone;

   A lot of articles on not using this feature ...

  FYI:  https://www.nngroup.com/articles/form-design-placeholders/

Interesting - N'est Pas?

Regards ... Chris

 

Comment
  1. Miguel Leeuwe
  2. Tuesday, 19 November 2019 15:38 PM UTC
Qui, Ouai, but .. that's when you "replace" labels for hintText. You can use the hinText as a descriptive info.

BTW the whole "accessibility" thing is a whole new world for lots of us. Maybe HTML interfaces will be more useful in that case, since things have been defined already for html (if I remember well what I read somewhere).

Great point though!
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  1. Michael Kramer
  2. Tuesday, 19 November 2019 15:48 PM UTC
I read "Handle with care to improve not ruin user experience."

REF Mozilla's detailed documentation:

(1) PLACEHOLDER - is a brief hint to the user as to what kind of information is expected in the field. It should be a word or short phrase that demonstrates the expected type of data, rather than an explanatory message.

(2) PLACEHOLDER - is not as semantically useful as other ways to explain your form, and can cause unexpected technical issues with your content.
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  1. David Peace (Powersoft)
  2. Wednesday, 20 November 2019 14:23 PM UTC
Indeed, I would only use this for a hint type of information. But in windows apps it really is not necessary. Placeholders have been more widely used in Mobile UIs where the space for labels is not there. It's another thing that people think is nice but is relatively useless :)
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