Creating a Date Selection widget as a selector

Before You Begin

This topic discusses Date Selection widgets created to display in MicroStrategy Web. You can also create a Date Selection widget to display on a mobile device with MicroStrategy Mobile. On the mobile device, the widget displays as an interactive calendar. Flash Mode, Interactive Mode, and Express Mode in MicroStrategy Web displays it as the Date Selection widget shown in Creating Date Selection widgets. For a more detailed description of the Date Selection widget for the mobile devices, including an example, see Widgets for mobile devices. For instructions to create it, see the MicroStrategy Mobile Analysis Help.

If a Date Selection widget is created as a selector, the selector can be displayed as a standard selector such as a listbox or button bar in non-Flash modes in MicroStrategy Web. If you want to display the Date Selection widget as a Grid/Graph, or hide it completely, in non-Flash modes, create it as a widget instead. For instructions, see Creating a Date Selection widget as a widget. A Date Selection widget created as a selector allows multiple selections, unlike a Date Selection widget created as a widget.

You can create a Date Selection widget from scratch or by applying its style to an existing selector. The following procedure creates it from scratch.

To apply the style to an existing selector, set the Flash style property (found in the Property List or the Properties dialog box) to Date Selection.

A Date Selection widget always displays in Flash Mode as a widget.

To create a Date Selection widget (using a selector)

1. Open a document in the Document Editor. How?

Create the target

2. Create the Grid/Graph or panel stack to be used as the target, if it is not already in the document. The target must contain a date attribute, such as Day or Quarter. For instructions, see Displaying reports in documents: Grid/Graphs or Adding panel stacks to documents.

Create the selector

3. Click the Selector icon in the toolbar, and then select Date Selection.

   • When you move the cursor to the Layout area, the pointer becomes crosshairs.

4. Click in the desired section of the Layout area. If you click and drag in the section, you can size the selector. The selector is added to the document.

Define the selector

5. Right-click the new selector, and select Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.

   You can also change these properties using the Property List.

6. Click the Selector tab.

7. Select Select attribute elementfrom theAction Type drop-down list.

8. Select a date attribute from the Source drop-down list. (In the MicroStrategy Tutorial project, Day and Ship Date are examples of date attributes.)

   The Source drop-down list contains all of the attributes in all of the datasets in the document. The selector displays the attribute elements of the attribute selected as the Source.

Connect the selector to the target

9. You can select one or multiple Grid/Graphs or panel stacks, or any combination of Grid/Graphs and panel stacks, as the target of the selector. The target Grid/Graph or panel stack displays the attribute elements that the user chooses in the selector.

   • If targets are automatically maintained and you added the selector and target to the same document section or panel, the target Grid/Graph or panel stack is automatically added as a target to this selector.

   • If targets are automatically maintained but the selector and target are not in the same document section or panel, you must disable automatic target maintenance before selecting targets, as described below:

     1. Click Manual Targets. A warning message opens, indicating that you will need to manually maintain targets if you disable automatic target maintenance. For the effects of disabling automatic target maintenance, see Disabling automatic target maintenance to allow manual target selection.

     2. Click OK. You are returned to the Properties dialog box. Automatic target maintenance has been disabled for all selectors in the layout.

   • If targets are not automatically maintained, or you disabled automatic maintenance, you must manually specify the target of the selector:

     1. Select the target in the Available targets list, and click > to move it to the Selected targets list.

To set a default selector style for non-Flash modes/views

10. In Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web, the Date Selection widget is displayed as designed above. In non-Flash modes, the Date Selection widget is displayed by default as a Listbox style selector. To change the default selector style (for non-Flash Mode display), select a different DHTML style. The DHTML styles are listed below:

    • Drop-down

    • Slider

    • Listbox

    • Radio Buttons

    • Check Boxes

    • Button Bar

    • Link Bar

11. For Slider, Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, and Button Bar selector styles, the Orientation option is available. You can select whether to display the selector horizontally (on a single line from left to right) or vertically (in a single column).

12. The user must select an item in a selector to change the target of the selector. For the List Box selector style, you can allow a user to select an item by hovering the cursor over it, without clicking, if you select the Change selection on mouseover check box. If the user points the cursor away from the selector without clicking an item, the target reverts to its previous state.

    • The mouseover property is applied only in Flash Mode.

    • To allow multiple selections and define the All option for users

13. By default, the user can display all the attribute elements in the target at one time, by selecting the All option. To disable the All option, clear the Show option for all check box.

    The Show option for all check box is not available if the Style is set to Slider and the Allow multiple selections check box is selected.

14. By default, the All option (described in the previous step) is displayed as (All) in the selector. You can rename the All option by typing text into the Alias for All field.

    This option is available only if Show option for All is selected.

15. By default, users can only select one item from the following selector styles: Slider, Listbox, Link Bar, and Button Bar. To allow users to make multiple selections for these selector styles, select the Allow multiple selections check box. This check box is cleared by default. This option is unavailable for other selector styles (except for Check Boxes) because those styles do not support multiple selections.

16. Click OK to return to the document.

Related Topics

• Creating Date Selection widgets

• Creating a Date Selection widget as a widget

• Formatting Date Selection widgets for Flash Mode