Basic Settings

Select the fields to edit and the Field Settings and Permissions pane will display the relevant settings:

• Primary Key - Specifies whether or not the field is used to uniquely identify records in the view. These are typically auto-detected from the database, but in some cases it is necessary to manually specify the unique field combination.
• Conflict Check - Determines whether or not the server will query the database record for concurrent field modifications prior to committing changes. This should be unchecked for volatile data where it is safe to ignore changes made by other users.
• Ignore Modifications - Causes the Remote Client to ignore changes made by the user. This is useful to support certain cases where changes are used to affect remote client behavior but do not need to be committed to the server.
• Validation Style - Controls which validation style to use for the field. See the section below for more details.
• Default - New records use this setting to given initial values for fields.
• Visible - Controls whether or not the field is displayed to the user. Typically if fields are not needed by the user they should be removed from the SQL statement in the first place. This supports data that is needed to control application behavior that is not necessary to display to the user. This is true by default.
• Editable - Controls whether or not the user can edit the data in the field. Note that this only applies for new records or existing records where the Update Permission is true. This is true by default.
• Searchable - Controls whether or not the field can be accessed in the search screen. This is true by default.
• Sortable - Specifies if the user can sort the results based on this field. This is true by default.
• Correct Timezone - Adjusts data stored in the server time zone and displays it using the user's time zone. This is only available for Date/Time fields.
  

Note that this section also allows the field order to be rearranged if desired.

Virtual Fields

Virtual fields allow administrators to add additional fields to the view which do not exist in the target database. This is useful for several cases:

• Display composite information from several fields or other calculated data
• Reserve placeholder fields for data entry
• Create invisible fields for tracking state information associated with the record
• Add additional fields to control complex search behavior

Use the Create/Delete Virtual field buttons to manage the the available virtual fields. The name and data type for new fields need to be specified when adding virtual fields.

• Users cannot search on virtual fields in online mode because the backend data source is unaware of them. They can be queried on in offline mode.
• Virtual text fields have a Maximum Length setting that controls the size of the field available on the client.
• The Default setting is used to provide the initial value for virtual fields for both new and existing records.

Validation Styles

Validation Styles supply additional details that control how users interact with individual fields. The Validation Style setting for a field controls which style should be used. This is typically simply the name of the style, but in some advanced cases might be an expression that evaluates to the style name.

• This allows the same style to be used for multiple fields
• Expressions support creating powerful data-driven designs where the same field can work differently depending on the context. For instance, := test ( ${IS_NUMERIC}, 'Numeric Style', 'Text Style' ) could be used to make a value field restricted to numeric or text entry depending on the data.

Style Settings

• Format - Controls how the text, date and numeric data is formatted. The Numeric<n> formats display decimal data with the specified number of digits.. Date/Time Formatting commands are described in the Additional Information section of this document.
  

• Text Style - Controls the text and color style for the field. This supports coloring specific fields differently. See the Text Style Reference for more details.
• Search Flags - These options control how search value provided by the user are passed to the database. Note that these have potential performance issues because using them can result in running un-indexed queries.
• Ignore Case - Performs case insensitive queries by converting both sides of the expression to upper case. This only has effect on Oracle database as SQL Server databases are typically case-insensitive by default.
• Prefix/Suffix Wildcard - Automatically prepends or appends a '%' to user-supplied value.

Value Sources

The Value Source defines how potential values are provided when the user edits the field.

Static Lists

Static lists display a fixed list of items in the drop list for the field.

Restrict to List - Controls whether or not the user must select a value from the list, or has the option of typing in an arbitrary value.

Static List - Specifies the items to display, one-per-line. Multiple column lists can be displayed by separating the values with the pipe character (|). The value from the first column will be used for the field value, but the additional columns can display additional details, descriptions, etc. (CO|Colorado).

The split expression function can especially useful for managing the list values that are displayed. For instance, if the following attributes are defined:

Then you can set the Static List value to ${SPLIT_LOCATIONS} and the drop list will contain a list of the available locations. This would then allow the list to be different for various groups by changing the value of the CURRENT_LOCATIONS attribute.

Dynamic Lists

Queries data from another view and displays matching values in either a drop list or a pop-up grid editor.

• Restrict to List - Controls whether or not the user must select a value from the list, or has the option of typing in an arbitrary value.
• Display Style - Specifies how the list is presented to the user - either as a drop list or a popup window to select the value. Drop lists are limited to 100 items, therefore pop-up grids styles should be used for any lists that need to select from more items.
• Dropdown - Displays the values in a drop list for the data cell.
  
• Popup Filter/Grid/Record - Adds an edit icon to the data cell that when clicked displays the dynamic query in a popup dialog, initialized to the specified view display mode.
  
• Dynamic Query - Specifies the query used to obtain the data. This typically refers to attributes in the current record, which allows the list to be dynamically generated based on the individual record being accessed.
  
• Value Field - Specifies the field from the target view that is used to obtain the value for the cell being edited.
  
• Visible Fields - Allows multiple columns to be displayed for dropdown style lists. The Value Field column will always be displayed first, and this allows additional details to be displayed as well. This setting is not available for popup style lists.
  

Long Text Editors

Specify this style to display an icon that will pop-up a multi-line text edit dialog that enables the user to enter more detailed information into the field.

Max Length - Specifies the maximum amount of text that can be entered in the dialog. Zero means the length is unrestricted.

Binary Data Handlers

The DataSplice clients support using plug-ins to display and modify the values of binary fields.

• Handler Name - The name of the client plug-in handler to use for the data.
  
• Content Type - The MIME type of the data being edited.
  
• Additional Attributes - The plug-ins can support additional configuration options which will be exposed through this collection.