Review or change the following :

Name: The Field Type name to display in all Form Creation dialogs.

Description: A short description of the new field type.

Data Type: Controls how CommonSpot processes custom field type data for rendering and editing. You can adjust this setting for each of your custom field types to control display on output. See Text Handling in CommonSpot for more information.

These options affect how HTML data is handled.

The following native HTML characters must be escaped - that is, converted to their HTML equivalents - in content being edited to prevent interference with form processing. For example, without escaping double quotes entered in a text input control, the browser interprets the first one as the end of the field's value attribute, cutting off everything entered after that or dumping content outside the text field.

• ampersands &
• double quotes " "
• open tag delimiters <
• close tag delimiters >

Escaping also allows the correct rendering of content that includes HTML-like data. For example, without escaping, browsers suppress <characters> contained within tag delimiters as unknown HTML.

CommonSpot gives you the following options for handling HTML data in custom fields:

• HTML: Default. Escapes HTML for editing only, and not for rendering. HTML code input displays as expected on output. The characters listed above can be entered without interfering with form input processing.
• HTML Plus: Escapes HTML for editing, and includes enhanced whitespace handling for rendering. This option allows standard edit controls to work normally and shows live HTML on a page, but also automatically translates some conventions common outside the HTML world into HTML equivalents:

Newlines are converted to HTML<br> tags, so text moves to the next line, as it would in plain text.

Multiple spaces are converted to alternating non-breaking-space/space pairs, so they create additional space.

These behaviors are unlike plain HTML, where any amount of consecutive whitespace, including newlines, collapses down to the visual equivalent of one space. Page authors may find this more intuitive than having to type <br /> tags or &nbsp; to achieve these common effects. This is similar to the way Simple Text Block elements are handled.

• Text: Escapes HTML for rendering and editing. This is appropriate for data that will never have any live HTML in it, such as links or formatting. HTML tags or entities will appear as literal code, rather than actual bold text, for example.
• Unprocessed: No processing for rendering or editing. This leaves all data handling up to developers. If your render module uses standard HTML edit controls, you probably need to use ColdFusion's HTMLEditFormat function, or Server.CommonSpot.api.escapeHTML, to avoid the problems mentioned above. Without similar escaping in your custom element render handler, any HTML entered by contributors will be live on the page, leaving you vulnerable to defective or inappropriate usage. On the other hand, the unprocessed data type gives you complete control over your data, so it may be appropriate in cases where you're sending it to another system, or handling it outside an HTML context.

Use this tab to define how information requested in the Other Properties tab is displayed.

You can use any of the existing Property Modules or pre-built CommonSpot fields, or you can specify a custom script that prompts contributors for specific properties.

Select one of the currently available field types (Selection List, Checkbox, Text area, etc…) from the Standard Property Module dropdown, or select Custom Property Module to view a dropdown of already defined custom types.

Select Explicit Property Module to specify a path for a new type, as shown:

Note: The default location for all Property Modules for Custom Field Types is in /{siteroot}/customfields/.

Dependencies: You can automatically load resources and libraries required by your modules once you register them in CommonSpot. This field displays any registered resources loaded by this module. See Site Administration - Resources and Libraries. If the code requests a resource by its alias, CommonSpot identifies the library that the alias resolves to. If code requests a resource that does not exist or that is not registered, CommonSpot reports an error.

The Render Component is a ColdFusion CFC file that implements the Custom Field Type Render Module Interface API. Methods within this CFC are called when rendering the field on a Simple Form, Metadata form, or Custom Element form.

 

Select Custom Render Component to choose an an existing component from the dropdown.

Click New CFScript Skeleton to generate a new code outline for CFC-based form field, or click New Tag-based Skeleton to generate a code outline for a tag-based form field, typically in the same location as the Properties Module.

See "Creating a Rendering Component" in the CommonSpot Developer's Guide and API online Help for more information.

Click Explicit Render Component to specify a path for a new module. See Defining Render Handlers for general information on creating custom render modules.

Dependencies: You can automatically load resources and libraries required by your modules once you register them in CommonSpot. This field displays any registered resources loaded by this module. See Site Administration - Resources and Libraries. If the code requests a resource by its alias, CommonSpot identifies the library that the alias resolves to. If code requests a resource that does not exist or that is not registered, CommonSpot reports an error.

You can filter Custom Element data using field type as criteria.

Use this option to specify a custom module that runs when you filter on a field of this type.

Select standard filtering, pick an existing custom filter module from the dropdown, or click Explicit Render Module to specify a path for a module.