Headings, Footings and Captions on your XpressDox can be styled
If you are using the Define command, the Heading, Footing and Caption are all built into the same command and so are the styles. The Define is a way of specifying a number of different attributes about the same data element. If however, you are using separate commands for «Heading()», «Footing()» and «Caption()» then you can use their helpers in order to style them.
The style (i.e. bold, italic and/or underline), color and font of a Caption, Footing or Heading can be set to enhance the usability of the XpressDox interview screen. This is done by typing certain codes into the Caption, Footing and Heading commands, but the easiest way to set the style and color is by using the Command Assistant which contains helpers to guide you through the options for each of the commands.
Style a color / font
To change the style and/or color and font in an existing template, the codes can be typed into the command without having to use the helpers.
Examples are as follows:
A caption is to be bold and italic and underlined, colored light blue and rendered with font MS Reference Sans Serif with size 8.2 points:
«Caption(Name,^biu^@LightBlue/MS Reference Sans Serif/8.2@The Party's Name)»
The choice of color can be made from the color picker in the Command Assistant wizard, and here you can get very specific and specify the RGB or HEX color or simply pick from the color picker. When typing into the command, it does also accept English words e.g. Red, as a color choice.
Bolding only parts of the text in a heading / footing
Should you want to emphasize certain parts of the phrase in the Heading text it is possible to bold or italicize certain parts. Here is an example:
«Heading(Name,The ^b^company details^be^ are entered here, but if you don't know a particular item, then leave it blank.)»
Indenting a Heading / Footing with styling
Indent a Heading and color and style it:
«Heading(CompanyName,######^i^@Navy@The company details are entered here, but if you don't know a particular item, then leave it blank.)»
The # characters cause the heading text to be indented – which means that if a long heading wraps onto more than one line then the second and subsequent lines will start directly under the first line. If spaces are used instead of the # characters, then only the first line of a long heading will be indented. Each # character will cause the heading to indented about half a character width.
Aligning a Heading / Footing
Aligning the Heading:
«Heading(CompanyName,|^bui^@Navy@The company details are entered here, but if you don't know a particular item, then leave it blank.)»
The “pipe” character | will cause the Heading text to be aligned with the left hand edge of the data capture control on the interview screen.
The “backslash” character \ will align the text in the centre (center) of the data capture control in the interview screen.
«Heading(CompanyName,\^bui^@Navy@The company details are entered here, but if you don't know a particular item, then leave it blank.)»
Note that the indent (#), style (^bui^) and color/font (@Red@) codes are optional, but if they are included, they must appear at the front of the command text, and in the order shown in these examples.
The discussion above that applies to the Heading command applies to the Footing command as well.
Other articles on using Caption Footing and Heading commands are found at Interview layout tips and Sequence of fields on the interview.
