Question type - Short free text/en

Short description

This question type collects a single line of text input.

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Core settings

Mandatory

Description

This option allows the survey administrators to request their respondents to answer certain survey questions. If the mandatory questions are not answered, the respondents will not be able to proceed further. If you have a question with multiple subquestions, and you require only certain subquestions to be answered, use the minimum answer attribute located under the Logic tab.

If you use any of the preinstalled themes and the mandatory question attribute is enabled, a red asterisk will be shown next to the question. If you wish to hide it, please check these instructions.

Available options

• On - Question must be answered before the participant can proceed to the next page - the answer option 'No answer' is never shown.
• Soft - If the question is not answered, a warning is shown when trying to proceed to the next page - however, the participant can choose to ignore the warning and proceed. Note that the 'No answer' option is still shown (if activated in survey presentation settings)
• Off (default) - Question can be left unanswered

If the map is enabled as a google map, and the question is set to mandatory, the survey user must move the red point, or enter the Lat/Long text box.  The user may not merely rely on the default, and hit the "NEXT" button.  It is recommended that you so advise in the substance of the question text.

Validation (using regular expressions) (preg_validation)

Description

This option lets you specify a regular expression with which you can validate all the parts of a question.

If any question or subquestion value does not meet the validation requirements, the background colour of the text entry field will be changed to red so that users can easily see which parts of the question need to be corrected. Thus, you can do on-page validation. In this way you will not need to wait for the user to click on the submit button to validate the respective question.

Valid values

• Any valid regular expression

Example

• Click here to check multiple examples.

Condition (previously "Relevance equation")

Description

If the result value of the condition is "1" or "true", the question is "relevant" in the survey context, i.e. it is shown to the survey participant. If not, the question is hidden. Any survey question allows you to specify a relevance equation. This function is the successor of conditions and supports much more complex conditional logic.

Syntax Highlighting

Whenever you save the condition, it is evaluated and syntax-highlighted. Any errors will be color coded so that you can quickly detect and fix them.

 Hint: To check if all conditions are used correctly within your survey, read about our show logic file feature.

Valid values

• Any condition that makes use of the ExpressionScript syntax, without surrounding curly braces.

Examples

Here are good examples of syntax highlighting.

Advanced settings

Prefix (prefix)

Description

A text value to be shown as prefix before the text input box(es). The prefix is shown just left of the input.

If the screen is small, then the prefix will be displayed above the input. If you want to leave it on the left ^{(New in 3.0.0 )} : add suffix-prefix-force class to the question.

Valid values

• Any character or set of characters you wish to be displayed before the input

Example

Entering a value of "$" for this attribute would result in a dollar sign being displayed immediately preceding the text input box.

Suffix (suffix)

Description

A text value to be suffixed to a text entry box. The sufix is shown just right of the input.

On little screen : sufix is shown below the input. If you want to leave it at right ^{(New in 3.0.0 )} : add suffix-prefix-force class to the question.

Valid values

• Any character or set of characters you wish to be displayed after the input

Example

Entering a value of "%" for this attribute would result in a percentage sign being displayed immediately after the text input box.

Display rows (display_rows)

Description

It sets the number of rows that are displayed without making use of the scroll bar to check all the content. If there are more rows than the number mentioned in this field, then a scroll bar will be displayed. The default value for the "Long free text" question type is 5, while for the "Huge free text question type" is 30.

Valid values

• Any positive integer number greater than 0

Input box width (text_input_width)

Description

This attribute sets the width of the text input boxes (of the "wrapper" of the text input boxes). The input box is used to introduce an answer to the (sub)question. If the value of the width is sufficiently high, then the text input box will be displayed on the next line. Please note that this option does not set the size of the input or the width of the entire column!

Available options

• Default: If selected, a default value will be allocated to this attribute in such a way to have both the label and its corresponding text input box on the same line. For example, if the text input box width is 41%, the value of the width of the text input box will be a value that allows both the label and the input box on the same line (58% in this case). If the width of text input box was higher than 58%, then the text input box would be displayed on the next line.
• 8%; 17%...92%, 100%: the bigger the selected value, the larger the width of the text input box.

Example

• If you wish to have the input part displayed below the subquestion/label, select the 100% option from the dropdown list.

Always hide this question (hidden)

Description

If enabled, the question will always be hidden - it will not be displayed to the survey participants. This function can be used in the following scenarios:

• If you wish to prefill a question with a URL and you want not to have it displayed on the screen. This overrides any conditions used within the survey because the respective question will not even be embedded on the page.
• If you wish to store or calculate a value on the fly via the ExpressionScript - Presentation.

Note: A common question type that is used with this function is the Equation one.

Available options

• On
• Off (default)

Maximum characters (maximum_chars)

Description

This allows you to set the maximum number of characters that can be entered for a text based question. Entering a value of, say, 20 will mean that the participant cannot enter any more than 20 characters.

Valid values

• Any integer value above 0

Randomization group name (random_group)

Description

It places the questions into a specified randomization group, all questions included in the specified group being displayed in a random order to the survey respondents.

You can find a sample survey using randomization group name in ExpressionScript sample survey.

Valid values

Just enter any string you like (for example: 'group1'). All question which have set the same string within the randomization group name box will have their place in the survey randomized (=randomly exchanged among each other).

Preview To preview the questions use the preview survey instead of the preview question group function, as the second has been reported to not show the questions in a randomized order.

Use mapping service (location_mapservice)

Description

If this option is activated, then the free text question type will display a map and not a text box to the respondents (they cannot be used both together concurrently).

Available options

• Off (default)
• OpenStreetMap via MapQuest
• Google Maps

  Google Maps needs a valid Google Map API Key!

If the Google Maps option is selected and the question is set to mandatory, the respondent must move the red point or enter the geographical data in the latitude/longitude textbox. The user cannot rely on the default values and hit the "Next" button. It is highly recommended to advise the users about this beforehand in the question text.

Advanced

OpenStreetMap via MapQuest uses GeoNames for the search box (with a user created for LimeSurvey). If you need to be sure that your access has not been restricted or if you use the GeoNames API a lot, the best best solution is to use GeoNames Webservices and set it up in your config.php file.

IP as default location (location_nodefaultfromip)

Description

If enabled, the default position on the map should be based on the user's IP address.

For this to work you have to set a valid key in IP Info DB API Key.

Available options

• Yes (default)
• No

Save country (location_country)

Description

If enabled, the country information will be stored in the survey results table. Only usuable with google map and a valid google map API key.

Available options

• Yes
• No (default)

Save city (location_city)

Description

If activated, the city information will be stored in the survey results table. Only usable with Google Maps and a valid Google Maps API key.

Available options

• Yes
• No (default)

Save state (location_state)

Description

If activated, the state information will be stored in the survey results table. Only usable with Google Maps and a valid Google Maps API key.

Available options

• No (default)
• Yes

Save postal code (location_postal)

Description

Enable this option if you wish the postal code to be stored in the survey results table. Only usuable with google map and a valid google map API key.

Available options

• Yes
• No

Default position (location_defaultcoordinates)

Description

Type in here the latitude and longitude where the map will be centered when loaded.

Example

Latitude [space] longitute: 52.1605 9.8438

Zoom level (location_mapzoom)

This options allows the survey administrator to set the zoom level for the map.

Valid values

• The minimum value that can be inserted is 0, while the maximum is 11.

Example

The below image shows a 500x300 map using zoom level = 5:

Map width (location_mapwidth)

Set in this field the width of the map in pixels. The default value is 500px.

Map height (location_mapheight)

Set in this field the height of the map in pixels. The default value is 300.

Numbers only (numbers_only)

Description

If you enable this option, the participant can only enter numbers in the text box(es).

For the equation question types, this setting indicates that the result could only be a number, not a string. This will guarantee proper calculations/conversions in follow-up equations regarding the decimal mark.

Behavior by question type

1. Default: If the subject enters a value that is not a number, that value is immediately cleared from the text box so that the subject can enter an appropriate value.
2. Array (Texts): If the numbers only option is disabled, the "Show totals for" and "Show grand total" options will be overruled, while the total text boxes will not be displayed.
3. Equation: Enabling this option will force the equation results to be converted to a numeric value. If the equation result is not a number (and not blank), the equation will return NaN, being saved as an empty string in the response table.

Available options

• On
• Off (default)

Insert page break in printable view (page_break)

Description

This attribute is only active when you actually print a survey from the Printable View. It forces a page break before the question.

Available options

• On
• Off (default)

Time limit (time_limit)

Description

Setting the time_limit attribute on a question will cause a countdown timer to begin counting down as soon as that question/page is loaded. At the expiry of the countdown timer the question will either automatically move on to the next page or become read-only.

Valid values

• Any positive integer number

Example

Set it to 240 to count down from 4 minutes (240 seconds).

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Time limit action (time_limit_action)

Description

Sets the action performed when a time_limit has expired. By default the action for a time limit is "Warn and move on", which means the system will give a short warning that the time limit has expired before saving the question and effectively automatically clicking "Next >>". The alternative choices are to:

• "Move on without warning", which automatically clicks the "Next >>" button after the timer is finished but without any warning message.
• "Disable only", which disables changes in the question so the participant can't change anything, but doesn't automatically click the "Next >>" button.

This setting is only applicable if the general time limit setting is activated.

Available options

• Warn and move on (default): will warn the participant that the time has expired, and then click the next button
• Move on without warning: will immediately click the next button after the time limit has expired
• Disable only: will disable the answer after the time limit has expired but not automatically click next

Additional information

  If the question is mandatory, or a question in the group is mandatory, a JavaScript loop will be created if the mandatory question(s) is/are not answered. As a result, an error will be displayed on the screen that certain questions have not be filled in, which in turn will trigger the refresh of the page.
Instead of relying on mandatory questions, you may use expressions (read more about question and subquestion validation equations) to make the user not leave empty the answer fields. To see how the validation equations work, check the following example.

In the case in which you want to apply a timer to a question group, activate the group-by-group survey mode, set up a question to use the time limit functionality, and choose the warn and move on (default) option as time limit action. Once the question timer expires, the survey will move to the next page.

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Time limit disable next (time_limit_disable_next)

Description

It allows disabling the "next" button while a time_limit countdown is occurring. Normally, even if the time limit countdown is active, if the participant wants to click "Next" and move on to the next question or question group, they can simply click on the "Next" button (thus cutting short the time spent on the question or question group). By activating this function, the next button will appear greyed out and will not be available until the countdown timer has finished.

This settings is only applicable if the general time limit setting is activated.

Available options

• On - The "Next" button will be disabled until the time limit countdown is complete.
• Off (default)

Note: If your survey uses the group by group format, this function applies to the whole group this question belongs to.

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