Our Dynamic Forms module is being used on a foundation website to accept a concept letter that we are trying to limit to 750 words (around 5000 characters).

We did the SQL routine to allow this size (here) but I was wondering about the 'client side' implications of this.

Let's say someone tries to enter a letter over the size limit. They will not know about it as Dynamic Forms does not tell them. If you look at this product that I have used for email feedback, you can limit the character size of the multi-line text field and it counts down how many characters the client has left to type in.

So we need someway in DF to have the field countdown or that on initial save the client sees 'Your concept letter is xx characters over the limit, please edit and resubmit' - or something.

You imagine the value of this for other projects like a school assignment that is limited to 2 pages, etc.

I think the way DF is set up now is if you blow past the SQL limit, nothing is recorded in the database, although the oversized letter does show up in the emails sent: potential for problems.

Thanks,

Will Sugg
www.planetmaine.net

Will... Hi, actually the module can already handle this I believe. You will need t a DIV HTML tag within the textbox footer and then implement client side events. These are new features within the 2.5 release and we use them in several form demonstrations.

I am having one of my guys right now check into adding a demonstration that will showcase the exact example you need so it will be easier for you or anyone else to implement.

Check out these two demonstrations:
Client Side Events - Includings copy billing to shipping address, forces the user to type in YES before they see the submit button, etc...

This demonstration is mostly for Authorizenet integration however you can see how checking the products checkbox group creates a quick client side 'Total' within a DIV tag. This is similar to how you will want your field to work. The function call instead of performing a calculation will actually just display the number of characters allowed left. You can have this execute on keydown or onkeyup etc... 

Check out this demonstration here.

So... Besides this you need to set the 'Max Length' property. This will actually stop the user from entering more characters which would then result in the database not allowing the information to be saved. This is separate from client side events and is useful since even version 1 I believe where if you only wanted the user to enter in 10 characters for example you could use this feature.

-Chad

Will,

Hi. I wanted to let you know that we posted the updated javascript client side event example/demonstration:

View Demonstration

You can also export the XML file and then import it to start out with a working demonstration.  I do believe you will still need to update the javascript file seperate from the XML import.

-Chad