Text, rich text and HTML elements

 

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Overview

Short text, text, rich text and HTML elements can be added to sites, site areas, content items and authoring templates or they can be created as individual components.

 

Short text element

A short text element is used to store small amounts of fixed-length text where the length is 250 bytes or less. Unlike the other text elements, short text elements can also be used as a search parameter in a Personalization rule.

 

Text element

You use a text element to store larger amounts of text than can be stored in a short text element. No special processing occurs for this element.

 

HTML element

An HTML element is used to store fragments of HTML that can be reused in presentation templates and other elements designs. You can enter HTML directly into the element or upload HTML from a previously created HTML file.

 

Rich text element

A rich text element is similar to the HTML element except that it includes a rich text editor that can be used to format text stored within a rich text element. The main purpose of the rich text element is provide base-level content creators with an easy-to-use text editor. Advanced users who are required to produce more advanced code, including Web content tags, or who need to store fragments of HTML should use an HTML element instead.

You should use rich text elements sparingly in authoring templates, sites, site areas and content items as adding multiple rich text elements to these items can reduce authoring performance. You access the accessibility features of the rich text editor by typing control-shift-m. This launches the detached accessible toolbar. You then use the following keystrokes:

Control-shift-t

This launches the table insertion dialog. Users should first select the point at which to create the table in the edit window, and then launch the table insertion dialog. You use the tab button to navigate through the data entry fields that are used to define the table. Users may click the OK button to insert the table or click the Cancel button to cancel the action.

Control-shift-g

This launches the color picker dialog. Users should first select some text in the edit window, and then launch the color picker. Users can use the tab key to navigate through the color swatches. The selected color name and value are displayed in the top text area. Users may press the Enter key to apply the color to the selected text or press the Cancel button to cancel the action.

The detached accessible toolbar can be closed by using the alt-F4 keystroke.

You can customize the detached accessible toolbar keystrokes by editing...

WP_PROFILE/PortalServer/config/com/ibm/wps/odc/editors/KeySequence.properties

 

Use Web content tags in rich text and HTML elements

Short Text and Text elements

Web content tags cannot be used in short text and text elements.

HTML elements

Any combination of Web content tags can be used in HTML elements with the following exceptions:

  1. You cannot use single quotes around attribute values.

    • <Component name='example'/>

    • <Component name='example' start='<a href="' end=' ">link</a>'/>

    • <Component name='example' start='<img src="' end=' "/>'/>

  2. You cannot use double quotes inside attribute values.

    • <Component name="example" start="<a href="" end="">link</a>"/>

    • <Component name="example" start="<img src="" end=""/>"/>

Rich text elements Basic WCM tags can be used in rich text elements. For example, the following tags can be used in Rich Text elements:

  • <component name="test"/>

  • <element type="content" context="current" key="body"/>

Highlighting of rich text elements is not enabled by default.

To enable this support, ensure that your server administrator adds the following line to the WCM ConfigService.properties file: 

wcm.enableWCM TagHighlighting=true
The following tag formats are invalid:

  1. The use of single quotes around attribute values.

    • <Component name='example'/>

    • <Component name='example' start='<a href="' end=' ">link</a>'/>

    • <Component name='example' start='<img src="' end=' "/>'/>

  2. The use of double quotes inside attribute values.

    • <Component name="example" start="<a href="" end="">link</a>"/>

    • <Component name="example" start="<img src="" end=""/>"/>

  3. Embedding tags inside other HTML tags.

    • <a href='<Component name="example"/>'>link</a>

    • <img src='<Component name="example"/>'/>

 

Parent topic

Work with elements