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Description

<et2-description> | Et2Description

When to use it

<et2-description> is the plain read-only text widget. Reach for it whenever a template needs to show a string the user cannot edit - a heading, a hint, a value pulled out of the content array, a paragraph of explanation. It is the widget a <description> in a legacy template becomes.

Its twin <et2-label> is the same class under a different tag name. Use et2-label when the text names another widget and et2-description for everything else - see Et2Label for the difference.

Examples

Text

The text comes from the value attribute, or from whatever you put between the tags.

Set as the tag’s own content
<et2-description value="Set with the value attribute"></et2-description>
<et2-description>Set as the tag's own content</et2-description>

value is run through egw.lang(), so a phrase that has a translation is shown translated. Set noLang on values that are data rather than a translatable phrase - a name, a number, a file path - so they are never accidentally replaced by a translation.

<et2-description noLang value="Not a phrase, do not translate"></et2-description>

Label

label is rendered before the value. If the label contains a %s, the value is placed at that spot and the rest of the label follows it.

<et2-description label="Due:" value="Tomorrow"></et2-description>
<et2-description label="Remind me %s before the event" value="15 minutes"></et2-description>

activateLinks scans the value for URLs and mail addresses and wraps each one in a clickable link. The text itself stays plain text - nothing else in it is interpreted.

<et2-description activateLinks
                 value="Read more at https://www.egroupware.org or write to info@example.org"></et2-description>

href turns the entire value into one link. A bare app.class.method style href is expanded into an EGroupware menuaction, an href starting with / is resolved relative to the EGroupware installation, and anything else is used as given.

<et2-description href="https://www.egroupware.org" value="The EGroupware website"></et2-description>

extraLinkTarget sets the target (default _browser), and extraLinkPopup - a widthxheight string such as 640x480 - opens the link in a popup window instead of a tab. Neither is shown live here, because both would spawn a window while you are reading.

Markdown

markdown parses the value as Markdown instead of showing it verbatim. This is opt-in per widget; without it the value is always plain text, so nothing a user typed can turn into markup by accident.

<et2-description markdown
                 value="Some **bold** text, a bit of `code` and a [link](https://www.egroupware.org)."></et2-description>

Translation happens before parsing, so if you enable markdown on a translated phrase the Markdown syntax has to be part of the translated string.

Properties

Name Description Reflects Type Default
activateLinks Scan the value, and if there are any links (URL, mailto:) then wrap them in a clickable tag boolean false
extraLinkPopup widthxheight, if popup should be used, eg. 640x480 string ""
extraLinkTarget Extra link target Goes with href. If provided, that’s the target for opening the link. string "_browser"
href Link URL If provided, will be clickable and open this URL string -

Learn more about attributes and properties.

Inherited properties (18)

Et2Widget

Name Description
accesskey Accesskey provides a hint for generating a keyboard shortcut for the current element. The attribute value must consist of a single printable character.
actions Set Actions on the widget Each action is defined as an object: move: { type: “drop”, acceptedTypes: “mail”, icon: “move”, caption: “Move to” onExecute: javascript:mail_move” } This will turn the widget into a drop target for “mail” drag types. When “mail” drag types are dropped, the global function mail_move(egwAction action, egwActionObject sender) will be called. The ID of the dragged “mail” will be in sender.id, some information about the sender will be in sender.context. The etemplate2 widget involved can typically be found in action.parent.data.widget, so your handler can operate in the widget context easily. The location varies depending on your action though. It might be action.parent.parent.data.widget To customise how the actions are handled for a particular widget, override _link_actions(). It handles the more widget-specific parts.
align Used by Et2Box to determine alignment. Allowed values are left, right
class CSS Class. This class is applied to the outside, on the web component itself. Due to how WebComponents work, this might not change anything inside the component.
data Set the dataset from a CSV
deferredProperties Any attribute that refers to row content cannot be resolved immediately, but some like booleans cannot stay a string because it’s a boolean attribute. We store them for later, and parse when they’re fully in their row. If you are creating a widget that can go in a nextmatch row, and it has boolean attributes that can change for each row, add those attributes into deferredProperties
disabled Defines whether this widget is visibly disabled. The widget is still visible, but clearly cannot be interacted with. Widgets disabled in the template will not return a value to the application code, even if re-enabled via javascript before submitting. To allow a disabled widget to be re-enabled and return a value, disable via javascript in the app’s et2_ready() instead of an attribute in the template file.
dom_id Get the actual DOM ID, which has been prefixed to make sure it’s unique.
hidden The widget is not visible. As far as the user is concerned, the widget does not exist. Widgets hidden with an attribute in the template may not be created in the DOM, and will not return a value. Widgets can be hidden after creation, and they may return a value if hidden this way.
id Get the ID of the widget
label The label of the widget This is usually displayed in some way. It’s also important for accessability. This is defined in the parent somewhere, and re-defining it causes labels to disappear
noLang Disable any translations for the widget
parentId Parent is different than what is specified in the template / hierarchy. Widget ID of another node to insert this node into instead of the normal location
statustext Tooltip which is shown for this element on hover
styles WebComponent *
options Get property-values as object
supportedWidgetClasses et2_widget compatability

LitElement

Name Description
updateComplete A read-only promise that resolves when the component has finished updating.
Inherited methods (21)

Et2Widget

Name Description
checkCreateNamespace() Checks whether a namespace exists for this element in the content array. If yes, an own perspective of the content array is created. If not, the parent content manager is used. Constructor attributes are passed in case a child needs to make decisions
clone() Creates a copy of this widget.
createElementFromNode() Create a et2_widget from an XML node. First the type and attributes are read from the node. Then the readonly & modifications arrays are checked for changes specific to the loaded data. Then the appropriate constructor is called. After the constructor returns, the widget has a chance to further initialize itself from the XML node when the widget’s loadFromXML() method is called with the node.
getArrayMgr() Returns the array manager object for the given part
getArrayMgrs() Returns an associative array containing the top-most array managers.
getChildren() Get child widgets Use .children to get web component children
getInstanceManager() Returns the instance manager
getPath() Returns the path into the data array. By default, array manager takes care of this, but some extensions need to override this
getRoot() Returns the base widget Usually this is the same as getInstanceManager().widgetContainer
loadFromXML() Loads the widget tree from an XML node
loadingFinished() Needed for legacy compatability.
parseXMLAttrs() The parseXMLAttrs function takes an XML DOM attributes object and adds the given attributes to the _target associative array. This function also parses the legacyOptions. N.B. This is only used for legacy widgets. WebComponents use transformAttributes() and do their own handling of attributes.
set_label() NOT the setter, since we cannot add to the DOM before connectedCallback() TODO: This is not best practice. Should just set property, DOM modification should be done in render https://lit-element.polymer-project.org/guide/templates#design-a-performant-template
setArrayMgr() Sets the array manager for the given part
setArrayMgrs() Sets all array manager objects - this function can be used to set the root array managers of the container object.
setInstanceManager() Set the instance manager Normally this is not needed as it’s set on the top-level container, and we just return that reference
_handleClick() Click handler calling custom handler set via onclick attribute to this.onclick
destroy() et2_widget compatability
set_class() Set the widget class
set_disabled() Wrapper on this.disabled because legacy had it.
set_statustext() supports legacy set_statustext