The EditMask edit style

Sometimes users need to enter data that has a fixed format. For example, in North America phone numbers have a 3-digit area code, followed by three digits, followed by four digits. You can define an edit mask that specifies the format to make it easier for users to enter values:

Edit masks consist of special characters that determine what can be entered in the column. They can also contain punctuation characters to aid users.

For example, to make it easier for users to enter phone numbers in the proper format, specify this mask:

(###) ###-####

At runtime, the punctuation characters display in the box and the cursor jumps over them as the user types:

If you use the “#” or “a” special characters in a mask, Unicode characters, spaces, and other characters that are not alphanumeric do not display.

Note the following about how certain keystrokes behave in edit masks:

• Both Backspace and Shift + Backspace delete the preceding character.

• Delete deletes everything that is selected.

• Non-numeric edit masks treat any characters that do not match the mask pattern as delimiters.

Also, note certain behavior in Date edit masks:

• Entering zero for the day or month causes the next valid date to be entered. For example, if the edit mask is DD/MM/YY, typing 00/11/01 results in 01/11/01. You can override this behavior in the development environment by adding the following lines to your PB.INI file:

  [Edit Mask Behaviors]
  AutocompleteDates=no
  

  For deployed applications, the date is completed automatically unless you provide a file called PB.INI in the same directory as the executable file that contains these lines. Note that this section must be in a file called PB.INI. Adding the section to a different INI file shipped with the application will have no effect.

• You cannot use a partial mask, such as dd or mmm, in a date edit mask. Any mask that does not include any characters representing the year will be replaced by a mask that does.

• The strings 00/00/00 or 00/00/0000 are interpreted as the NULL value for the column.

Click the button to the right of the Mask box on the Mask property page to display a list that contains complete masks that you can click to add to the mask box, as well as special characters that you can use to construct your own mask. For example, the menu for a Date edit mask contains complete masks such as mm/dd/yy and dd/mmm/yyyy. It also has components such as dd and jjj (for a Julian day). You might use these to construct a mask like dd-mm-yy, typing in the hyphens as separators.

You can define a mask that contains “as is” characters that always appear in the control or column. For example, you might define a numeric mask such as Rs0000.00 to represent Indian rupees in a currency column.

However, you cannot enter a minus sign to represent negative numbers in a mask that contains “as is” characters, and the # special character is treated as a 0 character. As a result, if you specify a mask such as ###,##0.00EUR, a value such as 45,000 Euros would display with a leading zero: 045,000.00EUR. Note that you must always specify a mask that has enough characters to display all possible data values. If the mask does not have enough characters, for example if the mask is #,##0.00 and the value is 45000, the result is unpredictable.

The preferred method of creating a currency editmask is to use the predefined [currency(7)] - International mask. You can change the number in parentheses, which is the number of characters in the mask including two decimal places. When you use this mask, PowerBuilder uses the currency symbol and format defined in the regional settings section of the Windows control panel. You can enter negative values in a column that uses a currency mask.

You can define an edit mask as a spin control, a box that contains up and down arrows that users can click to cycle through fixed values. For example, you can set up a code table that provides the valid entries in a column; users simply click an arrow to select an entry. Used this way, a spin control works like a drop-down list that displays one value at a time:

1. Select EditMask in the Style Type box if it is not already selected.

2. Define the mask in the Mask box. Click the special characters in the pop-up menu to use them in the mask. To display the pop-up menu, click the button to the right of the Mask box.

3. Specify other properties for the edit mask.

   When you use your EditMask, check its appearance and behavior. If characters do not appear as you expect, you might want to change the font size or the size of the EditMask.

You can use a drop-down calendar option on any DataWindow column with an EditMask edit style and a Date, DateTime, or TimeStamp datatype. The DDCalendar EditMask property allows for separate selections of the calendar month, year, and date. This option can be set in a check box on the Edit page of the DataWindow painter Properties view when a column with the EditMask edit style is selected. It can also be set in code, as in this example for the birth_date column:

dw1.Modify("birth_date.EditMask.DDCalendar=’Yes’")

If you do not include script for client formatting in a Web DataWindow, the drop-down calendar uses a default edit mask to display the column data based on the client computer’s default localization settings. To make sure that dates selected with the drop-down calendar option are displayed with the desired edit mask, specify that the Client Formatting option be included with the static JavaScript generated and deployed for the DataWindow.

To conserve bandwidth, JavaScript for client formatting is not included by default. To include this script, select the Client Formatting check box on the Web Generation tab of the DataWindow Properties view.

The drop-down calendar option is supported in all Web DataWindow rendering formats (HTML, XHTML, and XML).