WebInput.NET 3.0 Wizard at a glance

Hi everyone. My name is Aldy Karna and I’m Intersoft’s senior product developer and this time, I am sharing my excitement on the upcoming WebInput feature.

As a component vendor, our top priority is to deliver cutting-edge product with rich out-of-the-box features which improves your development productivity. This is the main concept behind WebInput’s Wizard, a new time-saving feature which enables you to configure WebInput in step-by-step window.

Despite WebInput’s capability for handling different input types, the configuration is quite complex. You need to learn and understand the concept first. The next challenge is to tangle with hundreds of properties and find the one that you need to set.

The new Wizard is designed to complement the existing Designer by providing the easiest way to step up your WebInputs. For example: you are creating a registration form with multiple fields. The Wizard lets you quickly add multiple WebInput, each with different setting. Later, you can use the Designer to fine tune each control.

Here is a shot on the new Wizard.

Wizard screenshoot

Functionalities
There are 6 main functionality of WebInput that are represented by Wizard. Each function has each own settings and each own step configuring in WebInput. Therefore we built this Wizard so user can be easily understood.

Simple input
Input simple data likes arbitrary text (alphabet, number, symbol, punctuation) without formatting and validation rules. WebInput is already to use as simple input as soon as you drag it from toolbox to page. No need to setting anything. There are a few settings for simple input to customize but they are optional too likes empty value as null, accept null value, read only mode, etc. This type of Webinput is usually used for input simple text data like address, city, region, country, notes, etc.

Password input
Input data as a password data. When users input a character, its visualisation is replaced to ‘*’ character. There are no formatting and no validation rules. Like simple input, you don’t need to customize anything and customizing some settings are optional. This type of WebInput is usually used only password data.

Datetime free input
Input date time data. When users input data, there is no formatting and validation. The formatting and validation are applied after the WebInput control losts focus. There is also a datetime editor for this type. This type is usually used when user want to input datetime value in arbitrary format (but still valid format for selected culture info). Commonly, user will input datetime value in universal format “MM-dd-yyyy”. There is also a datetime editor that can be used for this type. This type is rarely used in real application but still we develop it for larger WebInput customers.

Masked datetime input
Input date time data. This is the opposite of datetime free input. The formatting and validations are applied when users input data. There is also a datetime editor for this type. Probably the most useful and common function from WebInput. With this type, you can validate datetime input with masking expression that you built. Not only validate by syntax but also semantically (for valid date in a month, for month name, for leap years and so on) when user input the data. There is also a datetime editor that can be used for this type.

Numeric input
Input number and currency data. When user input data, there is no formatting and validation. The formatting and validation are applied after the WebInput control lost focus. There is also a calculator editor for this type.

Masked input
Input custom data such as phone number, social security number, zip code, and extension. There is a validation and restriction when user input data.

Ok, that is for now.

Regards,
Aldy