Question type - Multiple short text/en

Short description

This question type is a variation on the "Short Text" question type which allows more than one text entry per question. The user first defines the question and can then add additional text boxes by adding 'Answers'. Each answer becomes the label of the new text box.

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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

These Core Settings are available in Version 1.92 and beyond

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.

Random answer order (random_order)

Description

  As of 5.5.0, this attribute is not longer used for ordering answer options. Please see QS:Answer_order

This attribute causes LimeSurvey to ignore the existing order of answer options/subquestions, and instead it orders them randomly. This option permits the survey creator to diminish the survey bias. Please note that if a question has subquestions, the order of subquestions will be randomized, not the order of the answer options.

Available options

• Yes - Randomize when participant enters survey
• No (default)

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.

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These Advanced Settings are available in Version 1.92 and beyond

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