Multi-line Text Columns
Using multi-line text columns, you can enter data containing lengthy descriptions, such as project notes, customer addresses, or product descriptions.
If a column contains data that does not appear or behave as desired, you can edit the column’s General Properties and the properties defined by the column type.
General Properties
If a column contains data that doesn’t appear or behave as desired, you can edit the column’s General Properties.
Multi-line Text Options
In the Properties defined by the column type you can set the number of data lines, specify the form of data entry, and select an appropriate text format:
- Lines to Edit
- This property allows you to set the number of data lines presented in the multi-line text field. By specifying the "Lines to Edit" value, you determine the display height of the column cell. Note that there is no restriction on the number of characters entered in the field. Please ensure this field is filled out.
- Lines to Display
- This property enables you to set the number of data lines shown in the table or form, hiding the others. For example, you can display only two lines, and to view the remaining lines, you need to click the "More…" button.
- Data Entry
- This property lets you specify the form of data entry:
- Type-in: displays field as a simple multi-line text field;
- Append Only: adds information to the end of existing data each time the column cell is modified;
- Prepend Only: adds information at the beginning of existing data each time the column cell is modified.
- Format
- The Format property allows you to choose an appropriate text format for displaying data in Text-MultiLine columns:
- Simple Text: data is entered as plain text;
- Preformatted Text: preserves spaces, indentations, and line breaks in the initial text;
- Markup: data is entered as plain text with support for markdown formatting. The system displays a supplementary formatting toolbar above the multi-line text field for basic formatting operations like indenting paragraphs, creating lists, headers, etc.
- Help
- When you fill in the Help text property, a question mark will appear near the field name on the View/Edit form. Hovering over this question mark will display a pop-up with a tip or help text message.
Note: There may be times when you discover incorrect values stored in the Append Only (or Prepend Only) Text-MultiLine column, but correcting them is not straightforward. To edit these mistakes, you can temporarily change the Data Entry mode to Type-In, make the necessary corrections, and then revert it back to the Append Only (or Prepend Only) property.
How to Update Append/Prepend Multi-line Text Columns via Assignments
The Append/Prepend option is effective only in user mode. Therefore, assignments added to custom buttons and workflow actions always overwrite all the content of a multi-line-text field. To avoid this, consider the following simple workaround:
In the assignment, concatenate a new value with the existing value of the multi-line-text field. For example:
List("\n", "Prepend", [Multiline Text])
– or –
List("\n", [Multiline Text], "Append")
The bold timestamp line used in an Append/Prepend multi-line-text column is just another line of text enclosed in brackets with a time part formatted in a special way. Here is the formula to build such a timestamp line:
"[" & Replace(XMLFormat(ToTimestamp(Today(), ToTimeOfDay(Now()))), "+00:00", "Z") & " " & UserToName(User()) & "]"
For example, to prepend some text to a multi-line-text column via assignment, you can use the following formula:
List("\n", "[" & Replace(XMLFormat(ToTimestamp(Today(), ToTimeOfDay(Now()))), "+00:00", "Z") & " " & UserToName(User()) & "]", "text to prepend", [Multiline Text])
If you need to append some text to a multi-line-text column via assignment, you can use this formula:
List("\n", [Multiline Text], "[" & Replace(XMLFormat(ToTimestamp(Today(), ToTimeOfDay(Now()))), "+00:00", "Z") & " " & UserToName(User()) & "]","text to append")
