Entry text : keeping the placeholder displayed/editable

Feature Requests
1

Hi, in some cases, we provide guidelines to users in the placeholder of an entry text.

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It could be useful to have the option to make the placeholder editable by the end-user, so that she/he just have to complete it.

2

Wouldn’t that just be to set the default value in a form, or if it’s a custom form, then set the column value through an action when the screen is loaded?

2 Likes
3

Yes good idea if it is in a form.

1 Like
4

When would you use a text entry component outside of a form, custom or otherwise?

5

If I take the ex of my current app; it guides young entrepreneurs in designing the Business Model & Plan of their project: it has therefore dozens of entries, including many Text ones.

  • Each project is initiated via a Form with very few questions
  • Then the detailed writing is done in the newly created project:
    → here, my Text Entries don’t have the default value option; and this is where enabling the user to complete the placedholder would be useful.

NB : it’s clearly not a priority 1 request (since I don’t think that many people are working that way), but rather an idea (should have put it in @Jeff_Hager wiki for livecoding sessions…)

6

Yes, but you can still create a default value using the option that Jeff described, no?
That is:

  • Create a template column/s to hold your default text
  • Create User Specific Columns to act as the target for your text entry components
  • When a user opens the screen, use a custom action to write the default text into the User Specific Columns
  • Users can then adjust the text as desired
  • Then when the user submits, use another custom action to write the User Specific Column values to the appropriate places.

This a a technique that I use all the time, for both creating new rows and updating (editing) existing ones.

1 Like
7

Thank you @Darren_Murphy.
Yes, you’re both right, it is a very good workaround; nevertheless, isn’t it a little “heavy” to build if we have “50” Text entries?
My feeling is that having the ability to edit the placeholder should replace this, shouldn’t it?

8

I knew you would say that :wink:
And yes, but… even if you had native placeholder support you’d still face the same problem, right? You still need to store those 50 place holder text blocks somewhere…

1 Like
9

:wink:

Not sure, why? Today the placeholder is directly entered in the Text Entry component.
(you may answer: this means that we cannot manage it in the database and risk to loose it if we delete the component: (1) As a start, I accept the risk, (2) At target, we could imagine that in GDE, the Text field proposes to enter both the title of the field + the placeholder)

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1 Like