Input field with hints

The Input field with hints component is for recognizing input fields (non-protected fields) which have accompanying hints (text immediately following the input field on the same row). This component is functionally similar to the Input field component, except that hints must be found next to the candidate input. For example, suppose your host screen had the following input field:

Product code: [ ] (Valid codes: A, B, C, D)

In this example, the start of the hints is Valid codes:, the end of the hints is a close parenthesis [)], the separator is a comma (,), and the leading token type is None.

A recognized input field can be rendered by the following widgets:

The input field also uses valid value hints. By default, the input field does not recognize hints, therefore you will have to modify the component settings in order to pass these along to the rendering widget.

The following figure shows how an input field with hints component might appear on your host screen:

Figure 1. Input field with hints component example

Example of input field with hints component

Delimiter: position of delimiter, but leading token type was set to None.
Start of hints: open parenthesis (
Separator: or
End of hints: close parenthesis )

Leading token type is not marked. In this example, the leading token type is None. No letter or digit precedes the hints.

The following settings can be configured for this component:

Extract field caption

If selected, a caption for the recognized input field is extracted (see the description above for more information about this algorithm). This extracted caption can be used by the widget.

Restrict caption to selected region

If selected, the caption is limited to the text within the selected part of the screen.

Strip end of caption

If selected, the end of the caption is stripped after (and including) the first occurrence of any value specified in the Strip after setting. This setting is useful for cleaning up extracted captions.

Strip after: Required. The string (or set of strings) that is used to strip the extracted caption. For example, if the extracted caption is Command ==> and the value for this setting is =, everything after (and including) the first = is stripped off.

Replace with: Optional. The string with which to replace the stripped off portion (if applicable) of the caption.

Trim spaces on caption: If selected, white space (for example spaces and tabs) is removed from both ends of the extracted (and stripped) caption.

Clip input field to selected region: If selected, only the part of the input field inside of the selected region is recognized and rendered. If cleared, if any part of an input field is inside the selected region, the entire input field is recognized and rendered. This setting is useful if you need to break a large host screen input field into multiple, smaller Web page input fields.

Start of hints: Optional. The string of characters which identifies where the set of hints starts. Multiple values can be specified for this setting; separate with the vertical bar (|) character.

End of hints: Optional. The string of characters which identifies where the set of hint ends. Multiple values can be specified for this setting; separate with the vertical bar (|) character.

Separator: Required. The string of characters which separates each hint in the hint set. Multiple values can be specified for this setting; separate with the vertical bar (|) character.

Leading token type: Specifies what each hint is. For example, if the hint set was A=Apple,O=Orange,G=Grape, you would set this value to Letter (or Letter or Digit) because A, O, and G are all letters. You would set the delimiter to =.

Maximum length of leading token: Specifies the maximum length of the leading token. The default is 4.

Delimiter: Required. The string of characters which separates the leading token from the hint description. This setting only applies when the leading token type is not None.

Minimum required hints: The minimum number of hints that must be found for this input field to be recognized by this component. This setting is useful for avoiding errant recognition.