10.5.0

New action tag: @PREFILL - Sets a field's value to static text or dynamic/piped text whenever a data entry form or survey page is loaded, in which it will always overwrite an existing value of the field. The format must follow the pattern @PREFILL="????", in which the desired value should be inside single or double quotes. A field with @PREFILL will always be read-only, thus its value cannot be modified manually on the data entry form or survey page. For text fields, you may pipe and concatenate values from other fields in the project - e.g., @PREFILL='Name: [first_name] [last_name], DOB: [dob]'. For checkbox fields, simply separate multiple checkbox values with commas - e.g., @PREFILL='1,3,[other_field:value]'. NOTE: The piped value does *not* get applied during any data imports (via API or Data Import Tool) but only operates when viewing survey pages and data entry forms. NOTE: A field with @PREFILL will have its value updated ONLY when the page loads, which means that its value will not be updated in real-time if you modify other fields on the same page that are piped into the @PREFILL tag. NOTE: If being used on a date or datetime field, the date value inside the quotes must be in Y-M-D format - e.g., @PREFILL='2007-12-25' - regardless of the field's set date format. NOTE: The only difference between @PREFILL and @DEFAULT is that @DEFAULT is only applied when an instrument has no data yet, whereas @PREFILL will always be applied on an instrument, meaning that @PREFILL will ALWAYS overwrite the value if a field value already exists. TIP: To pipe the value of one multiple choice field into another multiple choice field, make sure you append ':value' to the variable being piped - e.g., @PREFILL='[my_dropdown:value]'.
New special functions: left(), right(), mid(), length(), find(), trim(), upper(), lower(), and concat(). These nine new functions can be specifically used when dealing with text values and may be especially useful when using them in conjunction with the @CALCTEXT action tag. To learn more and to see some practical examples of their usage, click the blue 'Special Functions' button in the Online Designer in any project.
- left (text, number of characters) - Returns the leftmost characters from a text value. For example, left([last_name], 3) would return 'Tay' if the value of [last_name] is 'Taylor'.
- right (text, number of characters) - Returns the rightmost characters from a text value. For example, right([last_name], 4) would return 'ylor' if the value of [last_name] is 'Taylor'.
- length (text) - Returns the number of characters in a text string. For example, length([last_name]) would return '6' if the value of [last_name] is 'Taylor'.
- find (needle, haystack) - Finds one text value within another. Is case insensitive. The "needle" may be one or more characters long. For example, find('y', [last_name']) would return '3' if the value of [last_name] is 'Taylor'. The value '0' will be returned if "needle" is not found within "haystack".
- mid (text, start position, number of characters) - Returns a specific number of characters from a text string starting at the position you specify. The second parameter denotes the starting position, in which the beginning of the text value would be '1'. The third parameter represents how many characters to return. For example, mid([last_name], 2, 3) would return 'AYL' if the value of [last_name] is 'TAYLOR'.
- concat (text,text,...) - Combines/concatenates the text from multiple text strings into a single text value. For example, concat([first_name], ' ', [last_name]) would return something like 'Rob Taylor'. Each item inside the function must be separated by commas. Each item might be static text (wrapped in single quotes or double quotes), a field variable, or a Smart Variable.
- upper (text) - Converts text to uppercase. For example, upper('John Doe') will return 'JOHN DOE'.
- lower (text) - Converts text to lowercase. For example, lower('John Doe') will return 'john doe'.
- trim (text) - Removes any spaces from both the beginning and end of a text value. For example, trim(' Sentence with spaces on end. ') will return 'Sentence with spaces on end.'.