Field

Description

Name

The name for your new variable. This will appear in the layout code view and in the 'Variables' tab of the library.

Description

The description that appears when you click on your user-defined setting when it appears in a grid. The text you enter here should explain what the variable/setting is designed to do.

Prompt

This appears in the grid and prompts you to enter a value for the setting.

Group

This is the heading in the grid that the new setting will appear under. It is also the group the variable will appear under in the 'Variables' tab in the library.

Place of Setting

Where in Actinic do you want to be able to enter values for the new setting? If you just want to set it once for the whole store then select 'Site'. If it is a value which is different from product to product then select 'Product'.

Tab Name

Only visible once a 'Place Of Setting' has been selected

Which tab do you want your new setting to appear within? If the tab contains lots of 'system settings' (see Making Changes in Actinic) then the grid containing this user-defined variable will appear underneath the system settings.

Type

Select what type of setting you are creating:

Text - a simple text field

Number - you will only be able to enter a numeric value for this setting

True/False - for when the setting only requires a 'yes/no' answer

List of Choices - Specify a list of choices to select an answer from

Date - You will be able to select a date from a calendar for this setting.

Filename - You will be able to browse your computer for the name of a file.

File content - You will be able to browse your computer for the name of a file, but the content of the file, rather than the name of the file, will be stored as the value of the setting.

Allow <Use Parent> as an option

Select this if you want the value for this setting to be able to inherit down the store structure. For more details, see Understanding Variable Inheritance

Allow Empty Value

Select this box if you want to allow the setting for this variable to be left empty.

Top Level Value

Enter a default value for this setting.

If you have 'Allow <Use Parent> as an option' selected, you have the option for the instances of this setting in Actinic to inherit the value you set here.

Initial Value

This is what will appear within the setting before it is modified.

If you have 'Allow <Use Parent> as an option' selected, you can select 'Use Parent' for this field, so all instances of this setting will inherit a value for this setting automatically.

Upload

Advanced users only

If you select this box, the variable values will be added to the online configuration files. You can then modify the online Perl scripts to use these values.

Field

When It Appears

Description

Whole Numbers Only

Only visible with a 'Type' of 'Number'

Select this if you only want to enter integers for this setting, and not numbers with decimal places.

Searchable

Only active once a 'Place Of Setting' of 'Product' or 'Section' is selected.

Select this if you want the online search tool to use this value when searching.

For more details see Searching On Product Properties.

Modifiable In Duplicate

Only active once a 'Place Of Setting' of 'Product' is selected.

If this setting is editable for a product, you can decide whether any duplicates of the product can have a different value for this setting than the main product.

Choices Button

Only visible with a 'Type' of 'List of Choices'

Click this button to set up the choices that are available in your list of choices.

Allow <New> as an option

Only visible with a 'Type' of 'List of Choices'

When you are offering a list of choices for the setting, select this box if you want the ability for new values to be added to this list.