Specifying selector properties using the Properties dialog box

Before you begin

You should be familiar with the various properties that define how a selector looks and what it controls, such as target and source. See Defining selectors for descriptions.

To change layout properties (such as position, selector size, and item size), you can use the Properties dialog box. You can specify properties that define the selector, such as action type and targets. You can also specify whether the width of the selector items (for example, the check boxes or buttons in the selector) is fixed or proportional.

This procedure uses the Properties dialog box to specify selector properties, because it contains all the properties. You can also use the Property List, which contains formatting properties as well and is displayed on the same screen as the Layout area. For instructions, see Formatting selectors.

Prerequisite

This procedure assumes you have added a selector to the document. For instructions, see Inserting selectors into documents.

To set selector properties

1. Open the document in the Document Editor. (How?)

2. Right-click the selector to modify, and select Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.

3. The properties are described in the order of the tabs on the Properties dialog box. To skip to a different section of this procedure, click one of the following:

   • General properties (General tab) (including name, tooltips, and title bar)

   • Margin and size properties (Layout tab)

   • Selector definition properties (Selector tab) (such as action type and targets)

   • Widget properties (Flash tab) (a widget is an interactive Flash-only graph displayed in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web)

General properties (General tab)

1. Select the General tab.

2. You can change the Name, which is used to identify the selector in Design view.

3. By default, a selector is visible in all views. To hide it when a user views the document, clear the Visible check box. The selector always remains visible in Design View (MicroStrategy Developer) and Design Mode (MicroStrategy Web). For more information, see Hiding controls.

4. To display text when a user positions the cursor over the selector in MicroStrategy Web, enter that text in the Tooltip field. Tooltips are not displayed in PDF view, in either MicroStrategy Developer or MicroStrategy Web. You can use tooltips to provide extra information. See Creating pop-up tooltips for more details.

5. To display a title bar above the selector:

   1. Select the Show title bar check box.

   2. Type the text to display in the title bar in theCustom titlefield.

      If you leave this field blank, the selector's Name is displayed, unless the selector's Action Type is defined as Select attribute element. In that case, the Source of the target (such as Region) is displayed.

Margin and size properties (Layout tab)

1. Select the Layout tab.

2. The left margin is the distance between the left edge of the selector and the left border of the section. Enter a new number in the Left field.

3. The top margin is the distance between the top edge of the selector and the top of the section. Enter a new number in the Top field.

4. To change the height of the selector, type the new number in the Height field.

5. To change the width of the selector, type the new number in the Width field.

6. To determine whether the height is dynamic or static, set the Height mode. The options are described below:

   • Fixed: The height does not change from the size set in the Height field.

   • Fit to contents: The height expands to the height of the control. This mode is ignored in Design View.

7. To change the height of the title bar, type the new number in the Title heightfield.

8. The Make all items the same width check box controls the sizing behavior of the selector items (for example, buttons). By default, this check box is cleared, which means that the width of each item is proportional to the length of the text inside the item. Select the check box to use the same width for all the items. For more information, see Specifying proportional or fixed width for selector items.

Selector definition properties (Selector tab)

1. Click the Selector tab.

2. Change the selector type by changing the Action type. The types are described below:

   • Selectattribute element: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector displays a list of the elements from the attribute selected in the Source field.

   • Select metrics: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector displays a list of the metrics available in the Grid/Graphs selected as the target.

   Metrics in text fields within the target are not listed. For example, a panel stack is selected as a target and contains a metric in a text field. That metric is not displayed in the selector when the document is executed.

   • Select panel: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector displays a list of the panels available in the panel stack selected as the target.

   If Style is set to Checkboxes, Selectpanel is unavailable, since you cannot display multiple panels simultaneously. Select a different style to display panels.

3. The selector displays the attribute elements of the attribute selected in the Source field. To change it, select a new Source from the drop-down list, which contains all of the attributes in all of the datasets in the document.

   This property is available only if Action type is set to Selectattribute elements.

4. To specify how the selector is displayed in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web if it is an interactive Flash-only selector, use the Flash style property. The options are listed below:

   • Automatic: The default, which uses the DHTML style for Flash Mode.

   • Fish Eye Selector: An interactive style of selector that is displayed only in Flash Mode. It magnifies an item when a user hovers the cursor over it. This style of selector is useful because it allows a user to choose from a large list of elements without having to see all of the elements displayed at the same time. Any item that a user hovers over or selects remains magnified, while the remaining items are minimized and hidden from view.

   • Since a Fish Eye Selector is displayed only in Flash Mode, determine how the selector is displayed in non-Flash modes by specifying a DHTML style, as described in the next step.

   • For more information about creating a Fish Eye Selector, see Creating Fish Eye Selectors.

5. To change how the selector is displayed, specify a new DHTML style. Options include Button Bar, Check Boxes, and Listbox. For a full list of the styles, see Defining selectors.

6. Specify the Orientation as Horizontal (the selector is displayed on a single line from left to right) or Vertical (displayed in a single column).

   Orientation is displayed for Slider, Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, and Button Bar only.

7. A selector can either filter or slice the data:

   • The selections made in a filtering selector are used to filter the underlying dataset before the metric values are aggregated at the level of the Grid/Graph that is displayed in the document. To define the selector to filter data, select the Apply selections as a filtercheck box.

   • The selections made in a slicing selectors are used to determine which slices of data are combined and shown in the Grid/Graph. To define the selector to slice data, clear the Apply selections as a filter check box.

   • For more details on the differences, including examples, see Applying selections as filters or slices.

8. You can specify whether the selector shows the All item, which displays all the attribute elements or metrics in the target. To display the All item, select the Show option for all check box. To specify that the All item is not displayed, clear the Show option for all check box. For more information, see Disabling simultaneous display of all items in a selector.

   Show optionfor all is not displayed if Actiontype is set to Selectpanel, or if DHTML style is set to Slider and the Allow multiple selections check box is selected.

9. By default, the All item in selectors is displayed as (All), but you can replace the text of the item. The All item allows a user to display all the attribute elements or metrics in the target. Type the new text in the Alias field. For more information on the All option, see Disabling multiple selections in selectors.

10. You can specify whether the user can choose multiple items (for example, buttons or check boxes) in the selector. For more information, see Allowing multiple selections and autosubmission. Select one of the following:

    • To allow users to choose multiple items, select the Allow multiple selections check box.

    • To restrict users to choosing only a single item, clear the Allow multiple selections check box.

    • For the Slider, Listbox, Link Bar, and Button Bar styles, the check box is cleared. You can select the check box to allow multiple selections.

    • For Check Boxes, the option is always enabled. You cannot change the setting.

    • For Drop-down and Radio Buttons styles, this option is always disabled, since these styles do not support multiple selections. You cannot change the setting.

11. To determine whether a selector item can be selected if the user hovers the cursor over it without clicking, set the Change selection on mouseover property. By default, the user must select an item to change the target of the selector. To change this behavior, select the Change selection on mouseover check box.

    The mouseover property is available only for List Box style when Flash view is enabled.

12. To determine how the target displays when no data exists, use the Automatically update when there is no data for the current selection check box. The selector that you want to be automatically updated must be on a panel. The selector that will update the first selector must target the panel stack. For an example, see Determining how the target of a selector displays when no data exists.

    • To display a message that no data is returned, clear the check box.

    • To display an item, select the check box.

13. If the Action type is set to Select attribute element, the Current state property is displayed. This property determines how the target is displayed when the document is executed. Whena user chooses items in the selector and saves the document, those selections update theCurrent statefield. If the document is not saved, those selections are not saved and therefore theCurrent statefield remains unchanged. For more information, including examples, see Determining how the target of a selector displays (current state). Select one of the following options from theCurrent statedrop-down list:

    • IfApply selections as a filteris cleared (that is, the selector slices data):

    • To display the first Number of Elements, select Use first. For example, if the selector source is Region and Number of Elements is defined as two, the first two regions (Central and Mid-Atlantic) are displayed.

    • To display the last Number of Elements, select Use last. For example, if the selector source is Region and Number of Elements is defined as one, the last region (Web) is displayed.

    • To display data for all the items in the selector, select All.

    • If Apply selections as a filter is selected:

    • To display data for all items in the selector, select Unset (no filter).

    When a user has chosen items in the selector, Set to specific elementsis selected automatically. The target displays the items that the user chose in the selector. This option is shown only when a user has chosen selector items, and is available for both filtering and slicing selectors.

14. If Current state is set to either Use first or Use last, type the number of elements to display in the Number of Elements field. For example, if the selector source is Region, Use last is selected, and Number of Elements is defined as one, the last region (Web) is displayed.

15. By default, the Display selector docked to its panel stack (iPad only) check box is cleared. In documents displayed on iPads, selectors are displayed in the selector style (such as buttons or links) and in the location on the document defined when the selector was created. A docked selector displays as a selector bar at the bottom of the target panel stack (for an example, see the MicroStrategy Mobile Analysis Help). Select the check box to dock the selector (applies only to iPads with the MicroStrategy Mobile application).

    This check box is available only ifAction Typeis set toSelect Panel.

16. The Available targets list displays the Grid/Graphs and panel stacks on the document. The target of a selector is the object that changes its display based on the user's input. The object type(s) listed depend on the selected Action Type. For example, panel stacks are listed when the Action Type is Select Panel.

    Select the target(s) and click > to add them to the Selected targets list.

    If targets are automatically maintained, both the Available targets and Selected targets lists are unavailable. All Grid/Graphs and panel stacks in the same document section or panel as the selector are displayed in the Selected targets list. You can disable automatic targets by clicking the Manual Targets button. If you do, all selectors in the document are no longer automatically maintained. You can also choose another selector as the target of this selector. For more information about disabling automatic target maintenance, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors. For instructions to create a selector that targets another selector, see Creating selectors that target other selectors.

17. The Selected Targets list displays the target(s) of the selector. To remove a target, select it and click < to move it to the Available targets list.

Widget properties (Flash tab)

1. Click the Flash tab.

2. You can define how the selector displays in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web by specifying a widget in the Selected widget property. You can overwrite the rendering of the selector with a custom widget selector style that you created. For more information, see the MicroStrategy Developer Library (MSDL) provided with MicroStrategy SDK.

3. Click OK when you have set all the properties for the selector. You are returned to the Document Editor.

Related Topics

• Formatting selectors

• Providing interactivity to users: Selectors