HTML Section Overview

HTML Sections can be used for labels, input forms, or to show results. These Sections accept HTML content, but have a handful of important capabilities that integrates them with Objectsheet sections and improves their ease-of-use:

• There is a wiki syntax (tutorial, reference) to simplify common formatting.
• HTML sections can include live content by adding Javascript contained within <% ... %> tags.
• Any HTML form element with a name="..." attribute becomes a variable attached to an HTML section. For instance, within a Section called "html1" if you place an html tag <input type="text" name="varname">, you can refer to that field's value anywhere using html1.varname. See tutorial for more details.
• You can also create a variable associated with an html section within <% ... %>; for instance, <% this.variablename = ...%>. You can reference this variable anywhere in the Objectsheet application using sectionname.variablename.
• You can also create a global variable by just assigning to the variable, e.g., <% variablename = ...%> . Using the Javascript keyword var (e.g., var variablename = ... will create a "local" variable, not referenceable outside that particular section.

HTML Sections are divided into two areas: the edit area (upper) and the results area (lower). You enter html or wiki text into the edit area. When you press "Ctrl-Enter" within the edit area or click out of it, the results area is updated. Click on the "E" icon at the upper right to toggle display of the edit area.

From within the Objectsheet application, you can turn an HTML area into a simple label by hiding the title and resize bars. See the "hide title" and "resize" columns in the Section menu at the top of the application window.

You can find additional information about HTML Sections in tutorial 4.