Styled Text Editor Component

Function

a!styledTextEditorField( label, labelPosition, instructions, helpTooltip, value, saveInto, readOnly, required, requiredMessage, disabled, validations, validationGroup, showWhen, accessibilityText, height, sizeLimit, placeholder )

Allows users to enter and view styled text. Text is stored with HTML formatting. To display text as a design element in your interface, use the rich text display component.

For more information on text input components and when to use each, see the Inputs best practices in the SAIL Design System.

Supported text formatting

The styled text editor supports the following text formatting:

• Bold text
• Italic text
• Underline text
• Strikethrough text
• Links
• Bulleted lists
• Numbered lists

Additionally, it also supports the following Markdown formatting:

Format	Markdown Formatting	Example	Returns
Bold	Double asterisks ** or underscores __	**text** or __text__	text
Italics	Single asterisk * or underscore _	*text* or _text_	text
Strikethrough	Double tildes ~~	~~text~~	text
Bulleted list	At the beginning of a new line, an asterisk *, dash -, or plus sign +, followed by a space	* text - text -or- + text	text
Numbered list	At the beginning of a new line, any number followed by a period and a space	1. text 1. text	text text

To keep the Markdown characters in your text without applying the formatting, after the formatting is applied, select the backspace key. The effect will be removed and the Markdown characters will be visible as plain text. This must be done right after the effect appears. After you move the cursor away from the formatted text, selecting backspace will no longer revert the formatting.

Parameters

Name	Keyword	Types	Description
Label	label	Text	Text to display as the field label.
Label Position	labelPosition	Text	Determines where the label appears. Valid values: "ABOVE" (default) Displays the label above the component. "ADJACENT" Displays the label to the left of the component. "COLLAPSED" Hides the label. The label will still be read by screen readers; see accessibility considerations for more information. "JUSTIFIED" Aligns the label alongside the component starting at the edge of the page.
Instructions	instructions	Text	Supplemental text about this field.
Help Tooltip	helpTooltip	Text	Displays a help icon with the specified text as a tooltip. The tooltip displays a maximum of 500 characters. The help icon does not show when the label position is "COLLAPSED".
Display Value	value	Text	Text to display in the field, including the HTML formatting.
Save Input To	saveInto	List of Save	One or more variables that are updated with the text when the user changes it. Use a!save() to save a modified or alternative value to a variable.
Read-only	readOnly	Boolean	Determines if the field should display as not editable. Default: false.
Required	required	Boolean	Determines if a value is required to submit the form. Default: false.
Required Message	requiredMessage	Text	Custom message to display when the field's value is required and not provided.
Disabled	disabled	Boolean	Determines if the field should display as potentially editable but grayed out. Default: false.
Validations	validations	List of Text String	Validation errors to display below the field when the value is not null.
Validation Group	validationGroup	Text	When present, this field is only validated when a button in the same validation group is pressed. Do not use spaces in the value for this parameter. For example, instead of “Future Hire”, use “Future_Hire”. See the following recipes for more information: Configure Buttons with Conditional Requiredness Validation Groups for Buttons with Multiple Validation Rules'
Visibility	showWhen	Boolean	Determines whether the component is displayed on the interface. When set to false, the component is hidden and is not evaluated. Default: true.
Accessibility Text	accessibilityText	Text	Additional text to be announced by screen readers. Used only for accessibility; produces no visible change.
Height	height	Text	Determines the field height. Valid values: "EXTRA_SHORT", "SHORT", "SHORT_PLUS", "MEDIUM" (default), "MEDIUM_PLUS", "TALL", "TALL_PLUS", "EXTRA_TALL".
Size Limit	sizeLimit	Number (Integer)	Determines how much text the user can enter. The parameter value is about equal to the number of characters allowed, including HTML formatting.
Placeholder	placeholder	Text	Text to display in the field when it is empty. Does not show if the field is read only.

Usage considerations

Inputting and formatting text

The styled text editor uses standard HTML to format text. For example, when a user applies underline formatting to text, behind the scenes the styled text editor wraps the value in HTML tags like this: <u>Text</u>.

Because of this, users can copy and paste text from other programs, such as documents and emails, and the supported text formatting will be preserved. Any unsupported formatting will be removed. For example, if someone copies and pastes a table, the table row and column formatting will be removed, but any supported formatting, such as bold text or links, will be preserved.

If users copy and paste or manually type HTML tags, the tags will be treated as plain text. When the value is stored, the less-than (<) and greater-than (>) symbols in the HTML tags will be replaced with their character reference—< for < and > for >.

For example, if a user types or pastes <u>Text</u>, it will be saved as <u>Text</u>. However, if a user copies "Text" into a styled text editor, it will be saved as <u>Text</u>.

When the text that the user is inputting reaches 100,000 bytes, the styled text editor will prevent them from entering more text.

Displaying styled text editor values

Displaying the read-only value

When you need to display the styled text editor value in an interface, display it in a styled text editor component with the readOnly parameter set to true. If you try to display it in any other component, it will display with the HTML tags.

The below screenshot shows the difference between displaying the value in rich text display, paragraph, and styled text editor components.

See Displaying read-only styled text editor values for guidance on displaying read-only values so that they are set apart from other formatted text in the interface.

Displaying the value in a grid

By default, displaying the value from a styled text editor component in a grid includes the HTML tags used for formatting.

If you need to display a styled text editor value in a grid, save an alternate value using stripHtml() to a separate field in your database. Use the alternate value for the sortField and value parameters in the grid column.

For considerations about using the value from a styled text editor in a grid, see Choosing which text input to use.

Displaying the value in emails

Because emails sent from Appian use HTML for formatting, you can use the styled text editor value in an Send E-Mail node and it will display with the user's formatting applied to the text.

Using parameters

Using the sizeLimit parameter

The size limit value

The value of the sizeLimit parameter is in bytes, not characters. Most characters are one byte. However, certain characters are more than one byte, including emojis and some characters from non-latin alphabets. So if you set the sizeLimit parameter to 4,000, you are allowing 4,000 bytes, not necessarily 4,000 characters.

Keep in mind that the HTML tags that are saved with the styled text editor value are included in the size limit. So even if a user enters exactly 4,000 characters, when they add any formatting, they will exceed the size limit.

Matching the size limit to the database field

Make sure the value you set for the sizeLimit parameter matches the length of the field in the CDT or record field.

• For a CDT field, set the Length to the same value you use for the sizeLimit parameter.
• For a record type with data sync enabled, if the sizeLimit parameter is more than 255, select Long Text for the field. Because the field character limit for synced record types is 4,000, be sure to set the sizeLimit parameter to 4,000 or less.

Size limit validations

When a user approaches the size limit, the styled text editor displays the remaining percentage of text they have left. When they exceed the size limit, it displays the percentage of how far they are over the size limit and a size limit validation message appears below the component.

Using a large size limit or no size limit

Whenever possible, set the sizeLimit parameter to 4,000 or less.

If you need to allow users to enter more text, avoid using the value in a process model. To save the value to a database, write it directly from the interface using a!writeToDataStoreEntity() or a!writeRecords() in the saveInto parameter of a button component.

Using the readOnly parameter

• If readOnly is set to true, the component's value displays without a box around it.
• If you pass the same local variable to value and saveInto when readOnly is set to false, you can use the user's input in the component to modify the interface.

Examples

Use the interactive editor below to test out your code:

Read-only styled text editor component

See Displaying read-only styled text editor values for guidance on displaying read-only values so that they are set apart from other formatted text in the interface.

Storing styled text editor value in a local variable

Feature compatibility

The table below lists this component's compatibility with various features in Appian.

Feature	Compatibility	Note
Portals	Compatible
Offline Mobile	Compatible
Sync-Time Custom Record Fields	Incompatible
Real-Time Custom Record Fields	Incompatible	Custom record fields that evaluate in real time must be configured using one or more Custom Field functions.
Process Reports	Incompatible	Cannot be used to configure a process report.
Process Events	Incompatible	Cannot be used to configure a process event node, such as a start event or timer event.

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