Value property
Special value available in formulas:
Item
The field this property is part of, enabling multiple checked items in the app designer to share the same formula and be updated all at once.
Consider the fields Field1 and Field2, which should
only be considered to be valid if their values are
greater than 4. Without using the Item value, the Valid
property of Field1 would need to use the formula Field1 > 4Field1 > 4 and the Valid
property of Field2 would need to use the formula Field2 > 4Field2 > 4.
Using Item, both formulas can read Item > 4Item > 4. This is useful
if you have many fields and you want to be able to update their
formulas all at once. To do so, click their check boxes in Calcapp
Creator and make sure that a checked field is selected. Then, when you
update a formula for one checked field, you update all the other
checked fields too, which is a great timesaver.
Use Item in exactly the same way you'd use the regular
name. Field1.VisibleField1,Visible and Item.VisibleItem,Visible are equivalent, for
instance.
The value of the field. If no formula is associated with this property, the text field is an input field that users use to enter and edit values. If a formula is associated with this property, the text field is an output field that displays a calculated value derived through the formula.
Displaying long-form calculated text through a text field
Text boxes do not support displaying text calculated through a formula. If you don't need formatted text or images, you can achieve the same effect using a text field. To do this, you need to instruct it to display multiple lines and set its label to an empty text string.
You can set the text field value using the inspector by entering text in the
Calculated text box. To incorporate formulas, enclose them within
{{ and }} markers.
Consider this value:
The temperature is {{IF(Temperature > 85, "untolerable!" & NEWLINE()
& NEWLINE() & "It's time to get an air conditioner!", "quite
pleasant!")}}
The value above causes the text field to display this text if the value of the Temperature field is greater than 85:
The temperature is untolerable!
It's time to get an air conditioner!
If the value of the Temperature field is less than or equal to 85, this text is displayed:
The temperature is quite pleasant!
Behind the scenes, Calcapp converts an inspector value with formulas to a single traditional formula. You can view this formula, or edit it directly, by selecting the Value property from the drop-down menu next to the formula bar.
This traditional formula is equivalent to the value above:
The formula above uses & to join text strings together and the NEWLINE function to produce line breaks, enabling the text to consist of multiple paragraphs.
For more examples on how formulas can be used to calculate what text to display, refer to the Body property of email report buttons.
The remaining examples on this page use traditional formulas.
Referencing text field values from formulas
When referencing a text field value from a formula, there is no need to write .Value,Value after the field name if a text string is sought. These formulas are equivalent:
Above, & is looking to join two text strings together. As TextField1 can return a text string through its Value property, .Value,Value is implied.
Examples
Returns a text string consisting of the value of TextField1 joined together with "test".