topic Re: Display remaining character count in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Display remaining character count

JoeFlannery — Fri, 26 May 2017 13:39:54 GMT

Is there a way to display to the survey user, the remaining characters available for a text input field? Similar to what one sees when authoring a tweet in Twitter?

Re: Display remaining character count

MichaelKelly — Sat, 27 May 2017 21:06:52 GMT

This is not currently possible without creating a note below the field and doing a calculation - the string-length function would be useful in this case. It is a good enhancement request though so I would suggest you submit it to the ArcGIS Ideas site.

Re: Display remaining character count

DanielMcIlroy — Mon, 29 May 2017 04:13:31 GMT

Thanks Michael, this is very helpful and a good way to deal with this issue.

Just something that has been bothering me and that I haven't been able to find a quick answer to; Is a note field written to the final database or is for display only?

Re: Display remaining character count

MichaelKelly — Mon, 29 May 2017 07:41:18 GMT

That depends on whether you specify a name for the database field name. Below only the second note is stored:

type	name	label	calculation	bind::esri:fieldLength
text	example	Example		500
note		Count	concat(string-length(${example}), ' of 500')
note	exampleCountStored	Count Stored	concat(string-length(${example}), ' of 500')

As can be seen in the Schema Preview:

As can be seen in the example above, you can also change the length of a string if needs be using the bind::esri:fieldLength column.

Re: Display remaining character count

DanielMcIlroy — Mon, 29 May 2017 08:05:57 GMT

SUPER helpful! Thank you very much!

Re: Display remaining character count

MichaelKelly — Mon, 29 May 2017 08:08:59 GMT

More than welcome Dan

Re: Display remaining character count

MichaelKelly — Mon, 29 May 2017 14:36:38 GMT

Just a quick note to say that this functionality is available in the web client (i.e. when the survey is viewed through a browser):

https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/f2159e91f5c24f3495753fe68a9040f5

and the next generation forms (currently in beta)

https://survey123.arcgis.com/webclient/f2159e91f5c24f3495753fe68a9040f5

It's just not available in the mobile app yet.

Re: Display remaining character count

JoeFlannery — Tue, 30 May 2017 12:04:50 GMT

Michael:

Thank you for your time and input to this thread. Your solution, above, works fine, but is not dynamic, that is, does not show the user how many characters remain in the limit as they are typing.

Also, your comment on "note" items being committed to the database as asked by Dan McIlroy. It appears to me, from my Survey123 forms, that a "note" item is not by default committed to the database when the "name" field is populated with a value (see first screen capture). If a "calculation" is included with the note, then the note is committed to the DB (see second screen capture).

Note without "calculation"

Note with "calculation"

Re: Display remaining character count

JohnathanHasthorpe — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 05:32:45 GMT

As of 3.1, the character count will now be displayed on text questions in the field app.

Re: Display remaining character count

TedChapin — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 18:00:03 GMT

This is awesome! Now how do you turn it off?

Re: Display remaining character count

JamesTedrick — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 17:24:18 GMT

Hi Ted,

There is not a way to turn off the character count. Could I ask that you file an idea at https://ideas.arcgis.com/ explaining how the option to turn off the character count benefits your workflow?

Re: Display remaining character count

jamesmireland — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 18:00:36 GMT

I am using version 3.13.239 and cannot get the character count on my Notes field?

I am using Connect App for windows and using Web App to display the Survey123 form

Type = Text

Appearance = multiline

my field length = 200