Creating an Inline List

Note: This topic applies to the creation of inline lists to use in conjunction with IDO properties and property classes.

An inline list is a set of "hard-wired" values for a property that can be applied to a component. Such a list is typically used when the number of values to appear in a combo box or other display is limited and the values will be constant and unchanging.

To create an inline list for an IDO property or property class:

On the IDO Properties form or the Property Classes form, click the ellipses button (...) to the right of the Inline List field.
In the Edit Inline List form, determine the size of your inline list by adding rows and/or columns.

You can add any number of rows or columns, but for inline lists, it is usually a good idea to keep the number small. You should decide before creating the list exactly how many rows and how many columns your list needs to have.
In the Column For Value field, specify by column number which column is to provide the values to any components that use this property or property class.
In the Display Columns field, specify by column number which columns are to have their values displayed when the list is used.

If you want to display multiple columns, separate the column numbers with commas.

Be aware that, although you can use translatable strings in these lists, the IDO Runtime Service cannot access the string IDs. You can, however, resolve the string IDs at the user interface level.

For example, suppose you want to create an inline list with this information:

A set of four severity levels: Low, Medium, High, and Severe
A translatable string value for each level: sLow, sMedium, sHigh, sSevere
A numerical value for each severity level, so that the list items can be presented in the correct order, regardless of alphabetization or translation concerns

In this case, you would require two columns, one for the translatable strings and the other for the numeric values. You would require four rows, one for each severity level.

Then, in the Column For Value field, you would want to specify the numeric column as the value for the component using this property to use in creating the list in the correct order.

And finally, in the Display Columns field, you would want to specify the column containing the strings as the values to display when the list is actually presented in the UI.

When you click OK in the Edit Inline List form, then, this metadata is created in the Inline List field:

ENTRIES(sLow\0,sMedium\1,sHigh\2,sSevere\3) DISPLAY(1) VALUE(2)