LimeSurvey Manual - User contributions [en]

Expression Manager

2023-09-08T00:41:44Z

Adamzammit: Fix typo of three = signs which isn't a valid ExpressionManager comparison operator

<languages /> <translate>


__TOC__


<div class="simplebox"> Note: This feature is only available in LimeSurvey 1.92 or later. </div>

=Quick Start Tutorial= 

==Overview== 


When customizing your surveys, you typically need a way to specify the following:
#'''Navigation/Branching''' - letting a subject's answers change the order in which questions are asked
#'''Tailoring/Piping''' - how to phrase the question (such as referring to prior answers, or conjugating sentences based upon the number or gender of your subjects), or how to generate custom reports (like assessment scores or tailored advice).
#'''Validation''' - ensuring that answers pass certain criteria, like min and max values, or matching an input pattern


Expression Manager (EM) provides an intuitive way to specifying the logic for each of those features. Nearly anything that you can write as a standard mathematical equation is a valid expression, even if you are calling functions. EM currently provides access to 80 functions, and can be easily extended to support more. It also lets you access your variables using human-readable variable names (rather than SGQA names).


The following sections show the main places where Expression Manager is used

==Relevance (Controlling Navigation/Branching)== 


Some surveys use "Goto Logic", such that if you answer Question 1 with option C, then jump to Question 5. This approach is very limiting, since is hard to validate, and easily breaks when you have to re-order questions. EM uses a Boolean relevance equation to specify all of the conditions under which a question might be valid. If the question is relevant, then the question is shown, otherwise it is Not Applicable, and the value NULL is stored in the database. This is similar to what can be done via the Conditions editor, but EM lets you easily specify much more complex and powerful criteria (and lets you use the variable name rather than SGQA naming).


This image shows one way to review the relevance logic for a survey. It computes Body Mass Index. The relevance equation is shown in square bracket right after the variable name (which is in green). So, the relevance of weight, weight_units, height and height_units are all 1, meaning that those questions are always asked. However, the relevance for BMI is {!is_empty(height) and !is_empty(weight)}, which means that BMI will only be computed if the subject enters a value for both height and weight (thereby avoiding the risk of a divide by zero error). Also, the Report question is only shown if the subject answers all four main questions (height, height_units, weight, weight_units).


[[File:tutorial1.jpg]]


Relevance is shown and editable in the following places:

===Viewing / Editing Question-Level Relevance=== 


This equation computes the Body Mass Index (BMI). It is only asked if the person first enters their height and weight.


[[File:tutorial2.jpg]]


This is the edit screen for the BMI question.


[[File:tutorial3.jpg]]


Note that you do not use the curly braces when you enter a Relevance Equation.

===Viewing / Editing Group-Level Relevance=== 


This is a sample census survey. The first page asks how many people live with you and stores that in the "cohabs" variable. This page is only shown if you have more than one cohabitant (so it is shown for the second person cohabitating with you), and also only shows if you specified how Person One is related to you (p1_rel).


[[File:tutorial4.jpg]]


As you can see, the group also has question-level relevance criteria, such that each question only appears once you have answered the question before it (e.g. {!is_empty(p1_sex)}). EM combines the Group and Question-level relevance for you. Questions in a group are only asked if the group as a whole is relevant. Then, only the subset of questions within the group that are relevant are asked.


Here is the screen for editing the group-level relevance for that question:


[[File:tutorial5.jpg]]


Note that you do not use the curly braces when you enter a Relevance Equation.

==Tailoring/Piping== 


EM lets you easily do simple and complex conditional tailoring of your questions. Sometimes you just need simple substitution, like saying, "You said you purchased <nowiki>[</nowiki>Product]. What did you like best about it?". Sometimes you need conditional substitution like "<nowiki>[</nowiki>Mr./Mrs.] <nowiki>[</nowiki>LastName], would you be willing to complete our survey?". In this case, you want to use Mr. or Mrs. based upon the person's gender. Other times you need even more complex substitution (such as based upon a mathematical computation). EM supports each of these types of tailoring/piping.

===Conditional Equations=== 


The Body Mass Index example shows the ability to compute a person's BMI, even while letting them enter their height and weight in metric or non-metric units.


[[File:tailoring7.jpg]]


Here weight_kg is {if(weight_units == 'kg', weight, weight * .453592)}. This if() function means that if the subject entered the weight using kilograms, use that value, otherwise multiply the entered value (which was in pounds) by .453592 to convert it to kilograms. The height_m variable uses a similar approach to compute the person's height in meters, even if he entered his height in inches.


BMI computes the weight formula as {weight_kg / (height_m * height_m)}.


Lastly, the report conditionally tailors the message for the subject, telling him what he entered. ("You said you are 2 meters tall and weight 70 kg.")


Although not well shown in the above image, weight_status uses nested if() statements to categorize the person as underweight to severely obese. You can see its equation in the Show Logic View


[[File:tailoring8.jpg]]


From the edit window for this question, you can see two things:
#Tailoring must surround expressions with Curly Braces
#Expressions can span multiple lines if, as in this case, you want to make it easier to read the nested conditional logic.


[[File:tailoring9.jpg]]

===Tailored Questions, Answers, and Reports=== 


<div class="simplebox">Note: Dynamic tailoring may not work if answer options are made available in select boxes on the same question page. This results from the fact that tailoring inserts a <nowiki><span></nowiki> tag which is not valid inside select options.</div>


This example shows the BMI report.


[[File:tailoring10.jpg]]


Here is the edit window for the same question.


[[File:tailoring11.jpg]]


As you can see, anything in curly braces is treated as an expression, so is syntax-highlighted (color coded) in the prior image. If you had any typos (such as misspelled or undefined variable names or functions), EM would show an error, such as this, showing that height_unit is an undefined variable name (it is actually height_units), and rnd() is an undefined function (the proper function name is round()). In both cases, the errors are surrounded by a red box to make it easier to spot and fix them.


[[File:tailoring12.jpg]]


You can also see that you can quickly create complex reports, such as a table of entered values or tailored advice.


Please remember that all tailoring must surround expressions with Curly Braces, so that LimeSurvey knows which parts of the question are free text and which should be parsed through Expression Manager.

==Validation== 


EM controls how most of the advanced question options work. These control aspects like min/max numbers of answers; min/max individual values; min/max sum values; and checking that entered values match specified string patterns. You continue to enter those advanced question options as usual. However, now any value in one of those fields is considered an expression, so you can have min/max criteria with complex conditional relationships to other questions.


In all of these cases, since the advanced question option is always considered an expression, you do not use curly braces when specifying it.


The [[Expression Manager sample surveys|Sample Surveys]] pages shows many working examples of using expressions for validations.

=Introduction= 


LimeSurvey uses the new Expression Manager (EM) module which will let LimeSurvey support more complex branching, assessments, validation, and tailoring. It will replace how LimeSurvey manages Replacements, Conditions, and Assessments on the back-end. It will also speed up processing considerably since it eliminates most run-time database reads. EM was developed by Dr. Thomas White (TMSWhite).


This wiki page is the definitive reference for Expression Manager syntax and functionality.

==Key Definitions== 
#'''Expression''': Anything surrounded by curly braces
#*As long as there is no white space immediately after the opening brace or before the closing curly brace
#*The contents of Expressions are evaluted by EM, so they can contain mathematical formulas, functions, and complex string and date processing.
#'''Tailoring''': Sometimes called "piping", this is the process of conditionally modifying text
#*You have access to all 'replacement fields', participant data, and response data.
#*You also have easier access to questions, answers, and their properties.
#'''Relevance''' Equation: A new question attribute controlling question visiblity
#*If there is a relevance equation, then the question is only shown if the relevance evaluates to true.
#*Internally, all array_filter and array_filter_exclude commands become subquestion-level relevance
#'''Equation''' Question Type: A new question type that saves calculations or reports to the database
#*It is like a Boilerplate question, but its contents are saved to the database even if you set "Always Hide this Question"
#'''Question Code''': This is the preferred variable name for EM
#*This can be a descriptive name indicating the purpose of the question, making it easier to read complex logic
#*Valid question codes should NOT start with a number, so when using the question code to number your questions, simply use "q1", or "q1a" or "g1q2".
#*This is what currently becomes the variable name if you export data to SPSS or R, so if you do statistical analysis, you probably already made this unique.

==Do I have to use EM?== 


The short answer is No (but also yes).


EM is fully backwards-compatible with existing surveys. So, if you are happy to use Conditions and Assessments in the style that LimeSurvey used in versions <= 1.91+, you can continue to do so.


However, EM completely replaces how LimeSurvey internally deals with Conditions. Although you can still use the Conditions Editor to create and manage conditions, LimeSurvey 1.92 will convert those to the equivalent Relevance Equations. As part of the upgrade, LimeSurvey 1.92 will auto-convert all existing Conditions to Relevance Equations.


This should give you the best of both worlds - you can continue using LimeSurvey as you are used to, but will see the Relevance Equation equivalent so you can gradually migrate to Relevance Equations directly whenever you see fit.

==Can I mix use of Conditions and Relevance?== 


Yes. You can use the Conditions editor for some questions and the Relevance editor for others. Conditions are auto-converted to Relevance when you save the question.


Note, we assume that if you are using the Conditions editor, that you want those Conditions to over-write any manually entered Relevance equation. So, if you have existing Conditions and want to manually edit the Relevance, please delete the Conditions for that question first. Specifically, copy the generated relevance equation to a text editor, use the Conditions menu to delete all of the conditions for that question (which will also delete the relevance), then edit the question and paste the generated relevance equation from the text editor back into the relevance field for that question (and save the question). If there is enough demand for deleting conditions without deleting the generated relevance equation, we could add a bulk conversion process.

==How should I choose between Conditions and Relevance?== 


Here is a list of pros and cons of each style:


{| class="wikitable"
!Style!!Pros!!Cons
|-
|Conditions||1. Nice GUI for creating simple conditions <br/>2. GUI well documented and understood by support team||1. Only supports simple comparisons and does not AND/OR conditions well <br/>2. Cascading conditions work erratically <br/>3. Slow - database intensive, so can slow down long surveys <br/>4. Some reported problems with re-loading conditions <br/>5. GUI doesn't scale well when there are dozens, hundreds, or thousands of questions <br/>6. May be slow to convert paper-based surveys since must use SGQA names <br/>7. Often need a programmer to custom-code logic needed for complex branching
|-
|Relevance||1. Supports very complex logic, including 80+ functions and math/string operators <br/>2. Perfect support for cascading logic <br/>3. Fast - no extra database calls, so supports 1000+ question surveys <br/>4. No problems with re-loading logic since does not require SGQA codes <br/>5. Syntax-highlighting scales to 1000+ question surveys <br/>6. Easy and fast to use for groups wanting to computerize existing paper-based suveys. <br/>7. Easily supports semi-structured interviews and epidemiological surveys without needing a programmers||1. No GUI for simple conditions - use syntax-highlighting instead <br/>2. New, so support teams have not mastered EM yet.
|}


The bottom is that if you are happy with how LimeSurvey 1.91+ works, there is no reason to change what you do.

==What are some other benefits of using EM?== 


Here are some of the other reasons you might want to use EM.
#Calculations - you can create any calculation you can think of:
#*You have access to all common mathematical operators and functions
#*You have access to 70+ mathematical, date, and string processing functions
#*It is fairly easy for developers to add new functions if users need them
#Storing Calculations to Database
#*You can now compute simple and complex calculations and/or scale scores AND have them stored in the database without needing JavaScript.
#*You use the Equation question type to accomplish this.
#Assessments
#*You can now create assessments or scale scores from any question type, not just the subset that used to be supported
#*You can use Tailoring to show running or total assessment scores anywhere needed - even on the same page
#*You have more control over the reports generated based upon those assessment scores
#*You can store assessment scores in the database without needing JavaScript
#*You can hide assessment scores without needing JavaScript or CSS
#Replacement Fields
#*Instead of using {INSERTANS:SGQA}, you can just use the Question Code - this makes it easier to read and validate.
#*This also avoids the common need to edit questions to change the SGQA code to make everything work.
#Tailoring - you can conditionally display text based upon other values
#*Use the appropriate title for a subject, like (e.g. "Hello <nowiki>[</nowiki>Mr./Mrs.] Smith")
#*Output gramatically correct sentences based when singular/plural matter: (e.g. "You have 1 child" vs. "You have 2 children")
#*Appropriately conjugate verbs and decline nouns based upon subject's gender and plurality.
#New Variable Attributes - you can access the following to do your tailoring:
#* (no suffix) - an alias for qcode.code
#*.code - the selected response code for the question if it is relevant (otherwise blank), or the text value if it is not a coded question
#*.NAOK - same as .code, but can be part of calculations or lists even if irrelevant
#*.value - the assessment value for the question if it is relevant (otherwise blank), or the text value if it is not a coded question -- available is assesments are enabled for the survey, otherwise always zero
#*.valueNAOK - same as .value, but can be part of calculations or lists even if irrelevant
#*.shown - the answer as displayed to the user (this is what {INSERTANS:xxx} does)
#*.qid - the question ID
#*.gid - the group ID
#*.sgqa - the SGQA value for the question
#*.jsName - the correct javascript variable name for the question, regardless whether defined on this page or another
#*.qseq - the question sequence (starting from 0)
#*.gseq - the group sequence (starting from 0)
#*.mandatory - whether the question is mandatory (Y/N)
#*.question - the text of the question
#*.relevance - the relevance equation for the question
#*.grelevance - the relevance equation for the group
#*.relevanceStatus - whether or not the question is currently relevant (boolean (can be different in PHP and JS))
#*.type - the question type (the one character code)
#Dynamic On-Page Changes
#*All Relevance, Calculation, and Tailoring works dynamically on a page - so changes in values instantly update the page
#*So, you have questions dynamically appear/disappear based upon whether they are relevant
#*Questions are also dynamically tailored based upon responses on the page, so you can see running totals, tailored sentences and customized reports.
#New Data Entry Screen
#*In addition to using the current data-entry system, you can just use Survey-All-In-One.
#*This supports the on-page relevance and tailoring, so data entry clerks can quickly tab through and they will only have to enter the relevant responses
#*This can be critical if your data entry person needs to see the tailoring, which is also dynamic.
#Eliminates the need for most custom JavaScript
#*EM easily supports complicated computations, scoring, tailoring and conditional logic.
#*Some things will still need JavaScript (like custom layouts and conditionally hiding question sub-elements), but your JavaScript can use the EM functions so that you can access questions by their Qcode instead of SGQA, and access any of the question properties listed above.

==What are some other helpful new features enabled by EM?== 


Regardless of whether you continue to use the Conditions Editor or manually compose Relevance Equations, you get these additional benefits:
#You can create more complex validation criteria
#*All of the advanced question attribute (like max_answers, min_num_value_n, max_num_value) can use Expressions. So, you min/max criteria can be easily adjusted based upon prior responses, even if they are on the same page.
#*EM also handles all regular-expression-based validation, so you can robustly combine preg and equation-based question attributes.
#Easy Re-ordering (or deleting) of Questions and Groups
#*Prior to version 1.92, you could not re-order questions or groups if LimeSurvey thought that such-re-ordering could break conditions in which they were used. Similarly, you could not delete questions if any other questions depended upon them.
#*With EM's syntax highlighting, it is easy to see and validate whether you try to use questions before they are declared. So, we now let you re-order or delete questions and groups whenever you like. EM will update all of the syntax highlighting to show you potential errors.
#*The re-order questions view has been enhanced to help with such review. It now shows the question's relevance equation and tailoring, so you can immediately see whether any variables become pink (meaning they are used before being declared).
#The Question/Group Navigation Index is always available and accurate
#*Prior to version 1.92, these indexes were not available if there were complex conditions
#*With EM, we can guarantee that they are accurate.
#*Subjects can even jump back, to a prior question, change the answer, then jump forward (or submit)
#**When jumping forwards, EM will re-validate all of the intervening questions/groups.
#**If any questions become irrelevant, they will be NULLed in the database so that your data is internally consistent
#**If any questions become relevant or newly fail mandatory or validation rules, EM will stop on that page and force the user to answer those questions before jumping to their final destination.
#Auto-conversion of Conditions to Relevance
#*When you upgrade your database, all existing surveys that have conditions will have relevance equations generated for them
#*Whenever you import a survey, relevance equations will be created as needed
#*Whenever you add, delete, or modify conditions, EM will generate the appropriate relevance equation.
#Convenient Syntax Highlighting
#*When EM shows the relevance equation, it will show the Qcode, even if you entered an SGQA code, as we assume this will be easier to read.
#*All variables are color coded to show whether they were declared before or after the current question (or before or after the current group). This lets you quickly detect and fix cases where you try to use variables for relevance (including array_filter), tailoring, or validation equations prior to declaring them.
#*In addition, if you hover your mouse over the color-coded variable, you will see the most important metadata about that question. This includes the Group Sequence #, Question Sequence #, Qcode, Text of the question, and all available answer choices (if it is a question type with enumerated answer choices).
#**The list of answer choices uses this syntax: 'answers':{key:val, ... }.
#**''key'' has the syntax ''''scale~code'''' where ''scale'' is the answer scale (e.g. for dual scale), and ''code'' is the answer code.
#**''val'' has the syntax ''''value~shown'''' where ''value'' is the assessment value (if using assessments, otherwise ''code'')(e.g. Qcode.value), and ''shown'' is the display value as seen by the subject (e.g. Qcode.shown)
#**This means that many surveys can use calculations without needing assessment mode. If you have enumerated answer options that are unique, non-decimal, and non-negative, you can simply do calculations on the Qcode.code values.
#Easy review of entire survey logic and content
#*There is a new Show Survey Logic feature that lets you see everything about the survey (or group or question) on a single page.
#*It shows the Group, Question, Sub-Question, and Answer-level details for the selected scope (survey vs. group vs. question)
#*It also shows the relevance, subquestion-level relevance (for array_filter and array_filter_exclude), and generated validation equation (for preg and any validation rules like min/max sum/number of values), and all non-blank question attributes.
#*Everything is syntax-highlighted so that you can see potential syntax errors (like unbalanced parentheses or use of variables before they were declared)
#*The syntax-highligting supports rapid navigation and editing of the survey.
#**If you click on a variable name, it opens a browser window (or tab) that shows you that question and lets you edit it.
#**If you click on a group name, it opens a browser window (or tab) showing the group-reorder view so that you can easily move questions around.
#**All of the question attributes are also syntax highlighted. This lets you set and see expressions within advanced question options (like basing the max/min number/sum of values on an expression)
#*The EM author used similar view (a little cleaner) to let his collaborating Epidemiologists and Institutional Review Board validate and authorize surveys with thousands of questions in highly branched and tailored structured interviews

=Getting Started= 


The best way to get started with EM is to:
*Install the latest stable version from http://www.limesurvey.org/en/download
*Import and explore the [[ExpressionScript sample surveys|sample surveys]].
*Explore the [[ExpressionScript How-tos|use cases and HowTos]] and [[ExpressionScript examples|step-by-step examples]].
*Explore the EM documentation (this page)
*Examine the built-in EM test suite
**From any survey, under tools, select the EM option
**Available Functions lists the 70+ functions and syntax
**Unit Tests of Isolated Expressions
***shows examples of using all EM functions and operators, and the PHP and JavaScript results
***note there are few functions that generate different results in the PHP and JavaScript versions, so this page lets you plan your EM logic accordingly.

=What Functionality does Expression Manager Extend/Replace? (LimeSurvey <= 1.91+)= 

==Conditions => Relevance== 


Conditions controlled which questions are visible. The general syntax was ''SGQA operator Value'', like ''111X2X3 == "Y"''. Conditions could be ANDed or ORed together, but mixing ANDs and ORs was difficult. The conditions themselves were stored in a separate table, and large portion of LimeSurvey's code was devoted to managing Conditions. Because of extensive database access, processing large numbers of conditions could cause noticable performance problems. Furthermore, once you had conditions assigned to questions or groups, you were often not allowed to re-order or delete them.

==Assessments => Equations and Micro-Tailoring== 


Assessments let users create scale scores from a collection of questions. However, they could not dynamically change on the current page, and their values were not stored to the database.

==Replacements => Micro-Tailoring== 


Users could tailor some messages and questions based upon prior responses. For example, a question might be, ''{TOKEN:FIRSTNAME}, you said {INSERTANS:111X3X4} was your favorite sport''. However, it was not possible to do conditional tailoring (like say "Mr." or "Mrs." depending upon the person's gender), or conjugate verbs or decline nouns without fancy JavaScript. Authors could implement surveys that seemed to tailor questions, but it required separate questions for each permutation, and complex conditions to decide which questions to display.

==Validation== 


Question could be validated with Regular expressions, or minimum/maximum values, or let an SGQA response serve as the minimum or maximum value. However, validations could not be based upon calculations of other variables without fancy JavaScript.

==Equations== 


Equations were not supported without fancy JavaScript.

==Equation Question Type== 


Equations could not be saved to the database (e.g. the final score for an assessment) without fancy JavaScript.

=How Will Expression Manager Replace/Extend That Functionality?= 


The Expression Manager is a new core module within LimeSurvey that makes it much easier to support the type of complex functionality that used to require custom JavaScript. It is also replacing the way LimeSurvey currently manages Conditions and Assessments.

==New Terminology When Referring to Expression Manager (EM)== 


EM "thinks" of its functionality in the following terms:
*'''Relevance-based Branching''' - if a question is relevant, then ask it, otherwise don't (e.g. make it invisible, and mark it as NULL in the database). There is a new Relevance field for all Question types, and also for each Group (so you can apply a set of conditions to an entire group without having to copy the same condition to each question, and/or combine group and question-level conditional logic).
*'''Tailoring''' - Once you know which questions should be asked, tailoring (sometimes called ''piping'') specifies how the question should be asked. This lets you support not only simple subsitution (like {TOKEN:FIRSTNAME}), but also conjugation of verbs and declination of nouns based upon the gender or number of your subjects. It also lets you change the message you deliver to a subject based upon whether they answered (or how they answered) other questions.
*'''Equations''' - EM adds a new question type called Equation which stores the result of an Expression. These equations results are computed and written to the database, even if you hide them on the page. Thus, they are useful for hidden scoring calculations, navigation based upon complex equations, assessments, and reports that should be generated and easily available within the database.

===Relevance and Cascading Relevance=== 


Every question type now has a Relevance option which controls whether the question is displayed. EM processes each of the Relevance Equations in the order they should appear in the survey. If the expression is true (or missing - to support legacy surveys), the question will be displayed. If it is not relevant, then the question will be hidden, and the value will be NULLed in the database. If there are no relevant questions in a group, the entire group will be skipped.


Moreover, if any of the variables within an expression is irrelevant, then the expression always evaluates to false. This enables Cascading Relevance so that you do not have to write very long Relevance equations for each question.


Say you have 5 questions Q1-Q5, and you only want to show Q2 if Q1 was answered, and Q3 if Q2 was answered, etc. The relevance equations might be:


{| class="wikitable"
!Question Code!!Relevance!!Question
|-
|Q1||1||What is your name?
|-
|Q2||Q1||{Q1}, how old are you?
|-
|Q3||Q2||So, you are {Q2} years old. Are you married?
|-
|Q4||Q3 == "Y"||{Q1}, how long have you been married?
|-
|Q5||Q4||How many children do you have, {Q1}?
|}


The relevance calculations also work in JavaScript - so you could put all the above questions on one page and it would still work as expected. In fact, EM totally replaces how EM processes Survey vs. Group vs. Question-at-a-time survey formats. They now all use the exactly same navigation engine so they work identically regardless of survey style.


As long as you are on the same page, any data you entered will still be there, just hidden. So, if you enter some information, then choose an option that makes them irrelevant, then make them relevant again, your answers will still be available. However, as soon as you move to a different page, all irrelevant responses will be lost to integrity of the dataset.

===Group-Level Relevance=== 


Expression Manager also supports group-level relevance. This makes it easier to implement looping. Say you want to collect information about up to 10 entities (such a products or people in a household), where you first determine how many entities need follow-up (such as by asking how many people live in a household, or having people check which products they like from a long list). After knowning how many entities need follow-up, you can use Group-level relevance like {count >= 1}, {count >=2}, ... {count >= 10} for each of the 10 groups of follow-up questions. Within each group, you can have question-level conditional logic (e.g. gender or age-specific follow-up questions for each subject). The question and group-level relevance equations are ANDed together to determine which should be shown.

===Tailoring / Piping=== 


Anything within curly braces is now treated as an Expression (with one exception described below). Expressions have acccess to all of the LimeReplacementFields, all of the variables (via several aliases), all typical equation operators (mathematical, logical, and comparison), and dozens of functions (that even work dynamically on the client-side).


Using these equations, you can do things such as:
#Conditionally show tailored messages to the respondants based upon prior responses
#Create Assessments and show Assessment results (or conditionally branch or show messages) based upon those results, all without using the Assessments module itself
#Conjugate verbs and decline nouns within questions, answers, and reports.
#Show summaries of responses before the "Show your answers" page at the end of the survey

===Equations=== 


There is a new question type called Equation. It is like a Boilerplate questions, except that it stores the value of what is displayed in the database. So, if the Equation Question text contains an Assessment computation, that value would be stored in the database in a variable that can be displayed within public or private statistics.


This solves a common request for storing Assessment scores within the database

==Syntax== 


Anything contained within curly braces is now considered an Expression (with one exception: there must be no leading or trailing whitespace - this is needed to ensure the Expression Manager does not try to process embedded JavaScript).


Note, it is OK for expressions to span multiple lines, as long as there is no whitespace after the opening curly brace or before the closing curly brace. This is especially helpful for nested if() statements like this:


<syntaxhighlight lang="java">{if(is_empty(PFTotals),
'',
if(PFTotals >= -5 && PFTotals <= -4,
'Very Soft',
if(PFTotals >= -3 && PFTotals <= -2,
'Soft',
if(PFTotals == -1,
'Somewhat Soft',
if(PFTotals == 0,
'Moderate',
if(PFTotals == 1,
'Somewhat Hard',
if(PFTotals >= 2 && PFTotals <= 3,
'Hard',
if(PFTotals >= 4 && PFTotals <= 5,
'Very Hard',
''
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)}
</syntaxhighlight>


<div id="EMsyntax">Expression Manager supports the following syntax:</div>
*All standard mathematical operators (e.g. +,-,*,/,!)
*All standard comparison operators (e.g. <,<=,==,!=,>,>=, plus these equivalents: lt,le,eq,ne,gt,ge)
*Parentheses (so you can group sub-expressions)
*Conditional operators (e.g. &&,| | and these equivalents: and,or)
*Single and double-quoted strings (which can each embed strings with the other quote type)
*Comma operator (so can have a list of expressions and just return the final result)
*Assignment operator (=)
*Pre-defined variables (to refer to questions, question attributes, and responses) - e.g. all of the SGQA codes
*Pre-defined functions (there are already 70+, and it is easy to add more)

=== Operators === 


EM syntax follows normal operator precedence:


{| class="wikitable"
!Level!!Operator(s)!!Description
|-
|1||()||parentheses for grouping or calling functions
|-
|2||! - +||unary operators: not, negation, unary-plus
|-
|3||* /||times, divide
|-
|4||+ -||plus, minus
|-
|5||< <= > >= lt le gt ge||relative comparisons
|-
|6||== != eq ne||equality comparisons
|-
|7||and||logical AND
|-
|8||or||logical OR
|-
|9||=||assignment operator
|-
|10||,||comma operator
|}

==== Warning with plus operator (+) ==== 


For consistency between JavaScript and PHP, the plus operator (+) does addition if both operands are numeric, but does concatenation if both parts are non-numeric strings. However, '''we recommend using the join() function for concatenation and sum() function for addition''', as that makes your intent more clear, and avoids unexpected results if you were expecting strings but got numbers instead (or vice versa).

==== Warning with mismatch between number and string and alphabetic comparison ==== 


When you want to compare value with relative or equality comparisons, pay attention to type mismatch. Value entered by user or answer code selected can be used as number if it's clearly a number.
If you surround one of the values with <code>"</code>it will force the comparison as text (alphabetic compare). If you want to compare numerically, never surround the number with quotation marks, <code>"</code>.


For example <code>Q0.NAOK > "50"</code> is true if Q0.NAOK is a numeric question with 9 as value. This is because the operator <code>></code> will assume it's alphabetical compare and not numerical.


To be sure to compare integer value, you can use <code>[[Expression_Manager#Implemented_Functions|intval]](Q0.NAOK) > 50</code>, just remember if Q0.NAOK is not a number (empty or a string), then intval(Q0.NAOK) == 0. To compare string value ("A" < "B") use [[Expression_Manager#Implemented_Functions|strcmp]] directly : <code>strcmp(Q0.NAOK,"B")</code> or <code>strcmp(Q0.NAOK,"A5")</code>.

===Caution about using Assignment Operator (=)=== 


Note, you should avoid using the assignment operators unless absolutely necessary, since they may cause unexpected side-effects. For example, if you change the value of a previous response, the cascading relevance and validation logic between that question and the current question is not re-computed, so you could end up with internally inconsistent data (e.g. questions that stay answered but should have been NULLed, or questions that are skipped but should have been answered). In general, if you want to assign a value to a variable, you should create an Equation question type, and use an expression to set its value. However, there are some rare times that people really need this operator, so we made it available.


To help caution you about this operator, it is shown in red font within the syntax equations (so that you don't confuse it with "==")

===Using Assignment Operator=== 
The main reasons you may want to use assignment are:
* You need to set the default value for a question that does not accept defaults via equation (such as list radio, where the user interface lets you pick one of the answer options, but does not let you enter an equation). However, be careful, as LimeSurvey will not be able to validate that your equation generates one of the allowable answers for that question.
* You need to forcibly change the response to a previous question based upon a later response
* You need complex quota : using one hidden single choice for quota and set it using assignment
* etc...


You can use all expression manager system for this purpose.


{{Alert|Assignment is done only in PHP. This doesn't update any values on the same page, but only when the user navigates with next, previous, save ….}}


{{Alert|If you don't use an [[Question_type_-_Equation|equation question]] type for this purpose: the assignment is done only after the logic of the current page is done. The recommended method is to always use an [[Question_type_-_Equation|equation question]].}}


Some example:
* Set answer to a short text question in lowercase : <code>{QCODE=strtolower(QCODE.NAOK)}</code>
* Set a default answer to an array question type at start of a survey : <code>{Q1_SQ1=((is_empty(Q1_SQ1.NAOK),"A99",Q1_SQ1.NAOK)}</code>
* Set a default answer to an array texts question type at start of a survey : <code>{Q1_SQY1_SQX1 = ((is_empty(Q1_SQY1_SQX1.NAOK),"Inserted answer", Q1_SQY1_SQX1.NAOK)}</code>
* Set an answer with condition : <code>{QCODE=if(YesNo="Y","A1","")}</code>

== XSS security == 


With XSS enable, some expression manager system can not be used :
* starting a HTML tag in expression but ending in another expression
* use a complex expression in URL.


Example and workaround
* <code>{if( 1 ,"<strong>","")}information{if( 1 ,"</strong>","")}</code> is broken with XSS security, here you can use <code>{if(1,"<strong>information</strong>","information")}</code>
* <code><a href="/script.php?value={if(QCODE == "Y","yes","no")}">next</a></code>, here you can use an equation question because using a complete question code is OK : <code><a href="/script.php?value={EQUATION.NAOK}">next</a></code>

==Access to Variables== 


Expression Manager provides read-only access to whichever variables we might need. For backwards compatibility, it provides access to the following:
*TOKEN:xxx - the value of a TOKEN (e.g. TOKEN:FIRSTNAME, TOKEN:ATTRIBUTE_5) (Only for NOT anonymous survey).
*[[Adding a question#Information_from_previous_answers|INSERTANS:SGQA]] - the display value of an answer (e.g. "Yes"). For Expression Manager it's the same that using {QCODE.shown}.
*All [[The_template_editor#Keywords|{XXX} values used by templates]].
*In question text, you can use {QID} replaced by the question id and {SGQ} replaced by the SGQA of the question


In addition, Expression Manager lets you refer to variables by the Question Code (the 'title' column in the questions table within the database). This is also the variable label used when you export your data to SPSS, R, or SAS. For example, if you have questions about name, age, and gender, you could call those variables ''name'', ''age'', and ''gender'' instead of ''12345X13X22'', ''12345X13X23'', and ''12345X13X24''. This makes equations easier for everyone to read and validate the logic, plus makes it possible to shuffle questions around without having to keep track of group or question numbers.


<div class='simplebox'>
'''Important:''' It is only safe to refer to variables that occur in preceding pages or questions.
</div>


Furthermore, Expression Manager lets you access many properties of the Question:


{| class="wikitable"
!Syntax!!Meaning!!Example!!Example Result
|-
|Qcode||an alias for Qcode.code||{implode(',',name,gender)}||'Tom','M'
|-
|Qcode.code||the selected response code for the question if it is relevant (otherwise blank), or the text value if it is not a coded question||{implode(',',name.code,gender.code)}||'Tom','M'
|-
|Qcode.NAOK||same as Qcode - see discussion of NAOK||{gender.NAOK}||'M'
|-
|Qcode.value||the assessment value for the question if it is relevant (otherwise blank), or the text value if it is not a coded question||{gender.value}||'1'
|-
|Qcode.valueNAOK||same as Qcode.value - see discussion about NAOK||{gender.valueNAOK}||'1'
|-
|Qcode.shown||the dispay value for the question||{implode(',',name.shown,gender.shown)}||'Tom','Male'
|-
|Qcode.question||the text of the question||{gender.question}||'What is your gender?'
|-
|Qcode.mandatory||whether the question is mandatory (Y/N)||{gender.mandatory}||'N'
|-
|Qcode.qid||the internal question number (not the sequential number)||{gender.qid}||337
|-
|Qcode.type||the question type||{gender.type}||'G'
|-
|Qcode.jsName||the correct javascript name for the question, regardless whether declared on or off this page||{gender.jsName}||'java1827X3X337'
|-
|Qcode.gid||the internal group number (not the sequential number)||{gender.gid}||3
|-
|Qcode.qseq||the sequential number of the question, starting from 0||{gender.qseq}||5
|-
|Qcode.gseq||the sequential number of the group, starting from 0||{gender.gseq}||1
|-
|Qcode.relevanceStatus||whether the question is currently relevant (0 or 1)||{gender.relevanceStatus}||1
|-
|Qcode.relevance||the question-level relevance equation||{gender.relevance}||'!is_empty(name)'
|-
|Qcode.grelevance||the group-level relevance equation||{gender.grelevance}||'num_children >= 5'
|-
|Qcode.sgqa||the SGQA value for this question||{gender.sgqa}||'1827X3X337'
|}

=== HTML editor issue=== 


{{Alert|This issue is fixed after 2.05 build 140803}}


If you use HTML editor, some characters are replaced by HTML entities.
* & by &amp;
* < by &lt;
* > by &gt;


If you use HTML editor you need to use :
* and for &
* lt for <
* le for <=
* gt for >
* ge for >=

==Qcode Variable Naming== 


Here are the details of how to construct a Qcode (and access some properties) by question type. In general, Qcodes are constructed as:


QuestionCode . '_' . SubQuestionID . '_' . ScaleId


For '''comment''' and '''other''', question code are QuestionCode_comment and QuestionCode_other


{| class="wikitable"
!Type!!Description!!Code!!SubQs!!Answer Options!!Scales!!Answer Code!!Answer Shown!!Relevance
|-
|5||5 Point Choice Radio-Buttons||Q1|| ||1-5|| ||{Q1}||{Q1.shown}||{Q1==3}
|-
|B||Array (10 Point Choice) Radio-Buttons||Q2||L1-L6||1-10|| ||{Q2_L2}||{Q2_L2.shown}||{Q2_L2==7}
|-
|A||Array (5 Point Choice) Radio-Buttons||Q3||1-5||1-5|| ||{Q3_1}||{Q3_1.shown}||{Q3_1>=3}
|-
|1||Array (Flexible Labels) Dual Scale||Q4||sq1-sq5||0:a1-a3||1:b1-b3||{Q4_sq1_0}||{Q4_sq1_1.shown}||{Q4_sq1_1=='b2'}
|-
|H||Array (Flexible) - Column Format||Q5||1-5||s,m,t|| ||{Q5_1}||{Q5_1.shown}||{Q5_1=='s'}
|-
|F||Array (Flexible) - Row Format||Q6||F1-F5||1-5|| ||{Q6_F3}||{Q6_F3.shown}||{Q6_F3==4}
|-
|E||Array (Increase/Same/Decrease) Radio-Buttons||Q7||1-7||I,S,D|| ||{Q7_4}||{Q7_4.shown}||{Q7_4=='D'}
|-
|:||Array (Multi Flexi) 1 To 10||Q8||ls1,todo,ls2||min,max,avg|| ||{Q8_ls1_max}||{Q8_ls2_avg.shown}||{Q8_ls2_min==7}
|-
|;||Array (Multi Flexi) Text||Q9||hp,st,sw||1st,2nd,3rd|| ||{Q9_hp_3rd}||{Q9_hp_3rd.shown}||{Q9_hp_3rd=='Peter'}
|-
|C||Array (Yes/Uncertain/No) Radio-Buttons||Q10||1-5||Y,N,U|| ||{Q10_1}||{Q10_1.shown}||{Q10_3=='Y'}
|-
|X||Boilerplate Question||Q11|| || || || ||{Q11.shown}||
|-
|D||Date||Q12|| || || ||{Q12}||{Q12.shown}||
|-
|*||Equation||Q13|| || || ||{Q13}||{Q13.shown}||{Q13>5}
|-
|~124~||File Upload (records number of files uploaded)||Q14|| || || ||{Q14}|| ||{Q14>0}
|-
|G||Gender Drop-Down List||Q15|| ||M,F|| ||{Q15}||{Q15.shown}||{Q15=='M'}
|-
|U||Huge Free Text||Q16|| || || ||{Q16}||{Q16.shown}||{strlen(Q16)>100}
|-
|I||Language Question||Q17|| || || ||{Q17}||{Q17.shown}||{Q17=='en'}
|-
|!||List - Dropdown||Q18|| ||1-5|| ||{Q18}||{Q18.shown}||{Q18==3}
|-
|L||List Drop-Down/Radio-Button List||Q19|| ||A-Z|| ||{Q19}||{Q19.shown}||{Q19=='X'}
|-
|O||List With Comment Drop-Down/Radio-Button List + Textarea||Q20|| ||A-F|| ||{Q20},{Q20comment}||{Q20.shown}||{Q20=='B'}
|-
|T||Long Free Text||Q21|| || || ||{Q21}||{Q21.shown}||{strstr(Q21,'hello')>0}
|-
|M||Multiple Choice Checkbox||Q22||A-F, other|| || ||{Q22_E}, {Q22_other}||{Q22_E.shown}, {Q22_other.shown}||{Q22_E=='Y'}
|-
|P||Multiple Choice With Comments Checkbox + Text||Q23||A-F|| || ||{Q23_D}, {Q23_Dcomment}||{Q23_D.shown}||{!is_empty(Q23)}
|-
|K||Multiple Numerical Question||Q24||self,mom,dad|| || ||{Q24_self}||{Q24_self.shown}||{Q24_self>30}
|-
|Q||Multiple Short Text||Q25||A-F|| || ||{Q25_B}||{Q25_B.shown}||{substr(Q25_B,1,1)=='Q'}
|-
|N||Numerical Question Type||Q26|| || || ||{Q26}||{Q26.shown}||{Q26 > 30}
|-
|R||Ranking Style||Q27||1-4|| || ||{Q27_1}||{Q27_1.shown}||{Q27_1==3}
|-
|S||Short Free Text||Q28|| || || ||{Q28}||{Q28.shown}||{Q28=='mine'}
|-
|Y||Yes/No Radio-Buttons||Q29|| || || ||{Q29}||{Q29.shown}||{Q29=='Y'}
|}

==The reserved 'this', 'self', and 'that' variables== 


Quite often, you want to evalute all parts of a question, such as counting how many subquestions have been answered, or summing the scores. Other times, you want to process just certain rows or columns of a question (such as getting the row or column sums and storing them in the database). These reserved variables make that process relatively painless.


The 'this' variable is used exclusively within the "Whole question validation equation" and "Sub-question validation equation" advanced question options. It expands to the variable names of each of the cells within those questions. So, if you want to make sure that each entry is greater than three, you would set the "Sub-question validation equation" to (this > 3).


The 'self' and 'that' variable are more powerful, and serve as macros which are expanded prior to processing equations. The syntax choices are:
*self
*self.''suffix''
*self.''sub-selector''
*self.''sub-selector''.''suffix''


''suffix'' is any of the normal qcode suffixes (e.g. NAOK, value, shown)


''sub-selector'' is one of:
*comments - only subquestions that are comments (e.g., from multiple choice with comment and list with comment)
*nocomments - only subquestions that are not comments
*sq_X - where X is a row or column identifier. Only subquestions matching pattern X are selected. Note that search is done on complete code identifier, then sq_X match and include subquestions nX, X, Xn (e.g. if you use sq_1, subquestions a1, 1a, 1, 11 or 001 was included). Put attention at dual scale question type where subquestions code are QCODE_SQCODE_1 and QCODE_SQCODE_1 and to ranking question type where subquestions code are QCODE_1,QCODE_2 ....
*nosq_X - where X is a row or column identifier. Only subquestions not matching pattern X are selected. Note that search is done on complete code identifier, then nosq_X match and does not include subquestions nX, X, Xn


Examples:
*Has any part of a question been answered? {count(self.NAOK)>0}
*What is the assessment score for this question? {sum(self.value)}


You can also use these to get row and column totals. Say you have a array of numbers with rows A-E and columns 1-5.
*What is the grand total? {sum(self.NAOK)}
*What is the total of row B? {sum(self.sq_B.NAOK)}
*What is the total of column 3? {sum(self.sq_3.NAOK)}


The 'that' variable is like the 'self' variable, but lets you refer to other questions. Its syntax is:
*that.''qname''
*that.''qname''.''suffix''
*that.''qname''.''sub-selector''
*that.''qname''.''sub-selector''.''suffix''


''qname'' is the question name without any subquestion extensions. So, say you create a question 'q1', that is its ''qname''


Examples:
*Has any part of question q1 been answered? {count(that.q1.NAOK)>0}
*What is the assessment score for q2? {sum(that.q2.NAOK)}
*What is the grand total of q3? {sum(that.q3.NAOK)}
*What is the total of row C in q4? {sum(that.q4.sq_C.NAOK)}
*What is the total of column 2 in q4? {sum(that.q4.sq_2.NAOK)}


The 'self' and 'that' variables can be used in any relevance, validation, or tailoring.


The one caveat is that when you use the [[Show Logic File|Show Logic File]] feature, it will show you the expanded value of 'self' and 'that'. This lets you see the actual equation that will be generated so that you (and Expression Manager) can validate that the variables exist. This may seem confusing since you may see quite lenghty equations. However, if you edit the question, you will see the original equation using 'self' and/or 'that'


Also note that you should not use these variables if (a) you want to explicitly name each variable used in an equation, or (b) use variables that do not have subquestions (e.g. single response questions). In those cases, prefixing a variable with 'that' is overkill, and you run the risk of getting unexpected results.

==Usage of NAOK== 


NAOK --> "Not Applicable" (NA) is alright (OK)


Using NAOK, means that all or some of the variables are irrelevant (e.g. "Not Applicable" (NA) is alright (OK)).


When you put some variable from question in any equation : if this question (or subquestion) is hidden by condition : this disable all equation.


For example : count(Q1_SQ1,Q1_SQ2,Q1_SQ3,Q1_SQ4) give always an empty string if one subquestion of Q1 is filtered.
To count the number of checked subquestion in such question can be count(Q1_SQ1.NAOK,Q1_SQ2.NAOK,Q1_SQ3.NAOK,Q1_SQ4.NAOK). If the sub question is hidden :Expression manager return an empty string.


Without NAOK : if one question or one subquestion is hidden : Expression Manager return always an empty string, same to return false.


The .shown always use the NAOK system (empty string if hidden) but if you need the code of the answer : it's always a good idea to add .NAOK after the question code. Except if you need it and know what you do.


Another example and information is provided at [[#Overriding_Cascading_Conditions|Overriding Cascading Conditions]]

==Access to Functions== 


Expression Manager provides access to mathematical, string, and user-defined functions, as shown below. It has PHP and JavaScript equivalents for these functions so that they work identically on server-side (PHP) and client-side (JavaScript). It is easy to add new functions.

===Implemented Functions=== 


The following functions are currently available:


{| class="wikitable"
!Function!!Meaning!!Syntax
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php abs]||Absolute value||number abs(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.acos.php acos]||Arc cosine||number acos(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.addslashes.php addslashes]||Quote string with slashes||string addslashes(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.asin.php asin]||Arc sine||number asin(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.atan.php atan]||Arc tangent||number atan(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.atan2.php atan2]||Arc tangent of two variables||number atan2(number, number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ceil.php ceil]||Round fractions up||number ceil(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.checkdate.php checkdate]||Returns true(1) if it is a valid date in gregorian calendar||bool checkdate(month,day,year)
|-
|convert_value||Convert a numerical value using a inputTable and outputTable of numerical values||number convert_value(fValue, iStrict, sTranslateFromList, sTranslateToList)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.cos.php cos]||Cosine||number cos(number)
|-
|count||count the number of answered (non-blank) questions in the list||number count(arg1, arg12, ..., argN)
|-
|countif||Count the number of answered questions in the list equal to the first argument||number countif(matches, arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|countifop||Count the number of answered questions in the list which pass the criteria (arg op value)||number countifop(op, value, arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php date]||Format a local date/time||string date(format <nowiki>[</nowiki>, timestamp=time()])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exp.php exp]||Calculates the exponent of e||number exp(number)
|-
|fixnum||Display numbers with comma as radix separator, if needed||string fixnum(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.floor.php floor]||Round fractions down||number floor(number)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.gmdate.php gmdate]||Format a GMT date/time||string gmdate(format <nowiki>[</nowiki>, timestamp=time()])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.html-entity-decode.php html_entity_decode]||Convert all HTML entities to their applicable characters (always uses ENT_QUOTES and UTF-8)||string html_entity_decode(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.php htmlentities]||Convert all applicable characters to HTML entities (always uses ENT_QUOTES and UTF-8)||string htmlentities(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php expr_mgr_htmlspecialchars]||Convert special characters to HTML entities (always uses ENT_QUOTES and UTF-8)||string htmlspecialchars(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars-decode.php expr_mgr_htmlspecialchars_decode]||Convert special HTML entities back to characters (always uses ENT_QUOTES and UTF-8)||string htmlspecialchars_decode(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.idate.php idate]||Format a local time/date as integer||string idate(string <nowiki>[</nowiki>, timestamp=time()])
|-
|if{{UpdatedIn|3.0.2}}||Excel-style if(test,result_if_true<nowiki>[</nowiki>,result_if_false = ""<nowiki>]</nowiki>)||if(test,result_if_true<nowiki>[</nowiki>,result_if_false = ""<nowiki>]</nowiki>)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.implode.php implode]||Join array elements with a string||string implode(glue,arg1,arg2,...,argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.intval.php intval]||Get the integer value of a variable||int intval(number <nowiki>[</nowiki>, base=10])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.empty.php is_empty]||Determine whether a variable is considered to be empty||bool is_empty(var)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-float.php is_float]||Finds whether the type of a variable is float||bool is_float(var)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-int.php is_int]||Find whether the type of a variable is integer||bool is_int(var)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-nan.php is_nan]||Finds whether a value is not a number||bool is_nan(var)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-null.php is_null]||Finds whether a variable is NULL||bool is_null(var)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-numeric.php is_numeric]||Finds whether a variable is a number or a numeric string||bool is_numeric(var)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-string.php is_string]||Find whether the type of a variable is string||bool is_string(var)
|-
|join{{NewIn|2.0|b=130129}}||Join elements as a new string||join(arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|list||Return comma-separated list of non-blank values||string list(arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|listifop{{NewIn|3.16.1}}||Return a 'glue'-separated list of the specified question property (retProp) from questions in the list which pass the criteria (cmpProp op value)||string listifop(cmpProp, op, value, retProp, glue, sgqa1, sgqa2, ... sgqaN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.log.php log]|| The logarithm of number to base, if given, or the natural logarithm. ||number log(number,base=e)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ltrim.php ltrim]||Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string||string ltrim(string <nowiki>[</nowiki>, charlist])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.max.php max]||Find highest value||number max(arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.min.php min]||Find lowest value||number min(arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mktime.php mktime]||Get UNIX timestamp for a date (each of the 6 arguments are optional)||number mktime([hour [, minute [, second [, month [, day [, year ]]]]]])
|-
|modulo-function||The modulo function is '''not supported''' yet. You can use the floor() function instead||floor(x/y)==(x/y)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.nl2br.php nl2br]||Inserts HTML line breaks before all newlines in a string||string nl2br(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.number-format.php number_format]||Format a number with grouped thousands||string number_format(number)
|-
|pi||Get value of pi||number pi()
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.pow.php pow]||Exponential expression||number pow(base, exp)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.quoted-printable-decode.php quoted_printable_decode]||Convert a quoted-printable string to an 8 bit string||string quoted_printable_decode(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.quoted-printable-encode.php quoted_printable_encode]||Convert a 8 bit string to a quoted-printable string||string quoted_printable_encode(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.quotemeta.php quotemeta]||Quote meta characters||string quotemeta(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.rand.php rand]||Generate a random integer, see [[Expression Manager sample surveys#Randomly Ask One Question Per Group|this example]]||int rand() OR int rand(min, max)
|-
|regexMatch||compare a string to a [[Using regular expressions|regular expression]]||bool regexMatch(pattern,input)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.round.php round]||Rounds a number to an optional precision||number round(val <nowiki>[</nowiki>, precision])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.rtrim.php rtrim]||Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the end of a string||string rtrim(string <nowiki>[</nowiki>, charlist])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sin.php sin]||Sine||number sin(arg)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php sprintf]||Return a formatted string||string sprintf(format, arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sqrt.php sqrt]||Square root||number sqrt(arg)
|-
|stddev||Calculate the Sample Standard Deviation for the list of numbers||number stddev(arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.str-pad.php str_pad]||Pad a string to a certain length with another string||string str_pad(input, pad_length <nowiki>[</nowiki>, pad_string])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.str-repeat.php str_repeat]||Repeat a string||string str_repeat(input, multiplier)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.str-replace.php str_replace]||Replace all occurrences of the search string with the replacement string||string str_replace(search, replace, subject)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strcasecmp.php strcasecmp]||Binary safe case-insensitive string comparison||int strcasecmp(str1, str2)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strcmp.php strcmp]||Binary safe string comparison||int strcmp(str1, str2)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strip-tags.php strip_tags]||Strip HTML and PHP tags from a string||string strip_tags(str, allowable_tags)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.stripos.php stripos]||Find position of first occurrence of a case-insensitive unicode string (starting by 0, return false if not found)|||int stripos(haystack, needle <nowiki>[</nowiki>, offset=0])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.stripslashes.php stripslashes]||Un-quotes a quoted string||string stripslashes(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.stristr.php stristr]||Case-insensitive strstr||string stristr(haystack, needle <nowiki>[</nowiki>, before_needle=false])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strlen.php strlen]||Get string length||int strlen(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strpos.php strpos]||Find position of first occurrence of an unicode string (starting by 0, return false if not found)||int strpos(haystack, needle <nowiki>[</nowiki> offset=0])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strrev.php strrev]||Reverse a string||string strrev(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strstr.php strstr]||Find first occurrence of a string||string strstr(haystack, needle<nowiki>[</nowiki>, before_needle=false])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strtolower.php strtolower]||Make a string lowercase||string strtolower(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php strtotime]||Parse about any English textual datetime description into a Unix timestamp||int strtotime(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strtoupper.php strtoupper]||Make a string uppercase||string strtoupper(string)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.substr.php substr]||Return part of an unicode string||string substr(string, start <nowiki>[</nowiki>, length])
|-
|sum||Calculate the sum of values in an array||number sum(arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|sumifop||Sum the values of answered questions in the list which pass the criteria (arg op value)||number sumifop(op, value, arg1, arg2, ... argN)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.tan.php tan]||Tangent||number tan(arg)
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.time.php time]||Return current UNIX timestamp||number time()
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.trim.php trim]||Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string||string trim(string <nowiki>[</nowiki>, charlist])
|-
|[http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ucwords.php ucwords]||Uppercase the first character of each word in a string||string ucwords(string)
|-
|unique||Returns true if all non-empty responses are unique||boolean unique(arg1, ..., argN)
|}

===Functions that are Planned or Being Considered=== 


Other functions that are planned (or being considered) but which are not implemented yet include the following. Some of these are for backwards compatability with another survey tool.


{| class="wikitable"
!Syntax!!Meaning!!Comments
|-
|e()||returns the value of e||
|-
|formatDate(X,PAT)||return the string value of date X formatted according to Java data format pattern PAT||
|-
|formatNumber(X,PAT)||return the string value of number X formatted according to Java number format pattern PAT||
|-
|getAnsOption(X)|| [[ExpressionAnswerOptions|Core plugin ExpressionAnswerOptions ]] ||
|-
|getAnsOption(X,Y)|| [[ExpressionAnswerOptions|Core plugin ExpressionAnswerOptions ]] ||
|-
|getRelevance(X)||returns the relevance equation for question X||
|-
|getStartTime()||returns the date corresponding to the system time when the interview was started||
|-
|getType(X)||returns the string name of the datatype - e.g. *NA* if isNA()||
|-
|gotoFirst()||jumps to the first relevant set of questions - this violates the normal flow of the system||
|-
|gotoNext()||jumps to the next set of relevant questions - this violates the normal flow of the system||
|-
|gotoPrevious()||jumps to the previous set of relevant questions - this violates the normal flow of the system||
|-
|isAsked(X)||returns true if the answer is neither *NA*, *INVALID*, nor *UNASKED*||
|-
|isInvalid(X)||returns true if the answer is of type *INVALID*||
|-
|isNA(X)||returns true if the answer is of type *NA*||
|-
|isNotUnderstood(X)||returns true if the answer if of type *HUH*||
|-
|isRefused(X)||returns true if the answer is of type *REFUSED*||
|-
|isSpecial(X)||returns true if the answer is of type *UNASKED*, *NA*, *REFUSED*, *INVALID*, *UNKNOWN*, or *HUH*||
|-
|isUnknown(X)||returns true if the answer is of type *UNKNOWN*||
|-
|jumpTo(X)||jump to the group containing the named question -- this violates the normal flow of the system||
|-
|jumpToFirstUnasked()||jump to the first unasked question <strike> thus bypassing previous answered questions </strike> this violates the normal flow of the system||
|-
|lastIndexOf(X,Y)||returns the last index (base 0) of string Y in string X. Returns -1 if Y is not contained within X||
|-
|list(X,...)||a string containing a comma separated list of the positive values with "and" separating the last two||
|-
|mean(X,...)||returns the mean of a list of values||
|-
|numAnsOptions(X)||returns the number of answer options that question X has||
|-
|orlist(X,...)||a string containing a comma separated list of the positive values, with "or" separting the last two||
|-
|parseDate(X,PAT)||returns the date value of string X parsed with Java date format pattern PAT||
|-
|parseNumber(X,PAT)||returns the numerical value of string X parsed with Java number format pattern PAT||
|-
|showAllResponsesExcept( questionList,attributeList,attributeTitleList)||questionList = pipe-delimited list of question identifiers; attributeList = pipe-delimited list of attributes (like question#, title, text, type - so you can decide what to show); attributeTitleList = pipe-delimited list of table headers, so can internationalize the report.||
|-
|showTheseResponses( questionList,attributeList,attributeTitleList)||questionList = pipe-delimited list of question identifiers; attributeList = pipe-delimited list of attributes (like question#, title, text, type - so you can decide what to show); attributeTitleList = pipe-delimited list of table headers, so can internationalize the report.||
|}

==Expression Manager Knows Which Variables are Local== 


In order to properly build the JavaScript for page, Expression Manager needs to know which variables are set on the page, and what their JavaScript ID is (e.g. for document.getElementById(x)). It also must know which variables are set on other pages (so that it can ensure that the needed <input type='hidden' value='x'> fields are present and populated).

==Cascading Conditions== 


If any of the variables are irrelevant, the whole equation will be irrelevant (false). For example, in the following table, N/A means that one of the variables was not relevant


{| class="wikitable"
!Operator!!Example!!a!!b!!Result
|-
|<nowiki>+ (unary)</nowiki>||<nowiki>+a</nowiki>||N/A|| ||false
|-
|- (unary)||-a||N/A|| ||false
|-
|!||!a||N/A|| ||false
|-
|== (or eq)||a == b||N/A||5||false
|-
|== (or eq)||a == b||N/A||0||false
|-
|== (or eq)||a == b||N/A||N/A||false
|-
|!= (or ne)||a != b||N/A||5|| false
|-
|!= (or ne)||a != b||N/A||N/A|| false
|-
|!= (or ne)||a != b||N/A||0||false
|-
|> (or gt)||a > b||N/A||5|| false
|-
|>= (or ge)||a >= b||N/A||5||false
|-
|< (or lt)||a < b||N/A||5||false
|-
|<= (or le)||a <= b||N/A||5||false
|-
|and||a and b||N/A||5||false
|-
|and||a and b||N/A||N/A||false
|-
|or||a or b||N/A||N/A||false
|-
|or||a or b||N/A||5||false
|-
|<nowiki>+</nowiki>||a + b||N/A||5||false
|-
|-||a - b||N/A||5||false
|-
|*||a * b||N/A||5||false
|-
|/||a / b||5||N/A||false
|-
|()||(a)||N/A|| ||false
|-
|(exp)||(a && b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|(exp) op (exp)||(b + b) > (a && b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|function||sum(a,b,b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|function||max(a,b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|function||min(a,b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|function||implode(', ',a,b,a,b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|function||if(a,a,b)||N/A||5||false
|-
|function||is_empty(a)||N/A|| ||false
|-
|function||is_empty(a)||0 (or blank)|| ||true
|-
|function||!is_empty(a)||N/A|| ||false
|}

===Overriding Cascading Conditions=== 


Say you want to show a running total of all relevant answers. You might try to use the equation {sum(q1,q2,q3,...,qN)}. However, this gets translated internally to LEMif(LEManyNA('q1','q2','q3',...,'qN'),'',sum(LEMval('q1'),LEMval('q2'),LEMval('q3'),...,LEMval('qN'))). So, if any of the values q1-qN are irrelevant, the equation will always return false. In this case, the sum() will show 0 until all questions are answered.


To get around this, each variable can have a ".NAOK" suffix (meaning that Not Applicable is OK) added to it. In such cases, the following behavior occurs. Say you have a variable q1.NAOK
#q1 is not added to the LEManyNA() clause
#LEMval('q1') will continue to check whether the response is relevant, and will return <nowiki>''</nowiki> if it is not (so individual irrelevant responses will be ignored, but they will not void the entire expression).


So, the solution to the running total problem is to use the equation sum(q1.NAOK,q2.NAOK,q3.NAOK,...,qN.NAOK).


The use of the .NAOK suffix also lets authors design surveys that have several possible paths but then converge on common paths later. For example, say subjects answer a survey in a way that is outside the normal range of responses. The author could alert the subjects that they may not get valid results, and ask them whether they really want to continue with the survey. If they say Yes, then the rest of the questions will be shown. The condition for the "rest of the questions" would check whether the initial responses were answered within the normal range OR whether the subject said Yes to the question that is only relevant if they answered outside the normal range.

==How does Expression Manager Support Conditional Micro-Tailoring?== 


Here is an example of micro-tailoring (where Question Type=='expr' means an Equation):


{| class="wikitable"
!Question Code!!Relevance!!Question Type!!Question
|-
|name||1||text||What is your name?
|-
|age||1||text||How old are you?
|-
|badage||!is_empty(age)||expr||{(age<16) or (age>80)}
|-
|agestop||badage||message||Sorry, {name}, you are too {if( (age<16),'young',if( (age>80),'old','middle-aged') ) } for this test.
|-
|kids||!badage||yesno||Do you have children?
|-
|parents||1||expr||{!badage && kids=='Y'}
|-
|numKids||parents||text||How many children do you have?
|-
|kid1||parents && numKids >= 1||text||How old is your first child?
|-
|kid2||parents && numKids >= 2||text||How old is your second child?
|-
|kid3||parents && numKids >= 3||text||How old is your third child?
|-
|kid4||parents && numKids >= 4||text||How old is your fourth child?
|-
|kid5||parents && numKids >= 5||text||How old is your fifth child?
|-
|sumage||1||expr||{sum(kid1.NAOK,kid2.NAOK,kid3.NAOK,kid4.NAOK,kid5.NAOK)}
|-
|report||parents||yesno||{name}, you said you are {age} and that you have {numKids}. The sum of ages of your first {min(numKids,5)} kids is {sumage}
|}


All of these questions can be on a single page (e.g. in the same group), and only the relevant questions will display. Moreover, as you enter the ages of children, the sum() expression in the last question will dynamically update on the page.


Expression Manager provides this functionality by surrounding each expression with a named <nowiki><span></nowiki> element. Every time a value changes, it recomputes the expression that should appear in that <nowiki><span></nowiki> element and regenerates the display. You can have dozens, or even hundreds, of such tailored expressions on the same page, and the page will re-display all of them in a single screen refresh.

==Mapping of LimeSurvey 1.91+ to Expression Manager Functionality== 


{| class="wikitable"
!Old Feature!!New Feature!!Comments
|-
|Conditions||Relevance||You can use very complex conditional equations, and access a broader range of variables
|-
|Assessments||Equation||Any assessment scores can be re-structured into an Equation. This both ensures that the score is written to the database, and also lets you see dynamic changes to the score value on the current page
|-
|Replacements||Expression Manager||The core engine takes the input string and treats everything within curly braces as an Expression - so it handles all historical replacements types. To avoid messing up embedded JavaScript, Expression Manager only processes content between curly braces as long as (a) there is no leading or trailing whitespace within the curly braces - e.g. {expr} is an expression, but { expr}, {expr }, and { expr } are not expressions. Furthermore, Expression Manager does not process content within its own strings (e.g. {list('hi','there {braces}')} generates "hi there {braces}"). It also ignores escaped curly braces (e.g. \{this is not an expression\})
|-
|Validation||Expression Manager||The plan is to take the current min/max Question Attributes and have Expression Manager process them. That way the min/max values can be expressions themselves
|}

=Syntax Highlighting= 


To help with entering and validating expressions, EM provides syntax highlighting with the following features:

==Types and Meanings of Syntax Highlighting== 


{| class="wikitable"
!Color!!Sample!!Meaning!!Tooltip!!Comments
|-
|tan background||style='background-color: #eee8aa'|Sample||the whole equation||none||Anything within curly braces that is recognized as an equation (e.g. there is no leading or trailing whitepace) will be color-coded with a tan background to help distinguish it from surrounding text
|-
|bold red text||style='color:#ff0000; background-color:#eee8aa'|'''Sample'''||An error||Some explanation on error||Can be an unknow variable or an error in function, .... Survey can be totally broken, this don't show to public user.
|-
|blue text||style='color:#0000ff; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||function name||meaning and allowable syntax||function names, or things that should be functions since they are followed by an opening parenthesis, are presented in bold blue text. Tooltips show the meaning and allowable syntax for the function.
|-
|grey text||style='color:#808080; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||string||none||single and double-quoted strings are shown in grey text
|-
|cyan text||style='color:#4169e1; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||variable set on the same page,||<nowiki>[</nowiki>name or SGQA code]: question; value; answerList showing codes for each value||Any variable that is set on the same page to the current question is shown in cyan text, showning it can be updated in javascript. The tooltip shows its name (if you used INSERTANS:xxx) or SGQA code (if you used the new naming system), the actual question, and its current value (or blank if not set). If the question type expects responses from an enumerated value set, the mapping of the codes to display values is show.
|-
|green text||style='color:#008000; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||variable set on a prior page||<nowiki>[</nowiki>name or SGQA code]: question; value; answerList showing codes for each value||Any variable that is set on a prior page is shown in bold green text. The tooltip shows its name (if you used INSERTANS:xxx) or SGQA code (if you used the new naming system), the actual question, and its current value (or blank if not set). If the question type expects responses from an enumerated value set, the mapping of the codes to display values is show.
|-
|bold pink text||style='color:#9370db; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||variable set on a later page <sup>in general : empty at survey start, but can be filled with index or move previous</sup>||<nowiki>[</nowiki>name or SGQA code]: question; value; answerList showing codes for each value||Any variable that is set on a next page is shown in bold pink text. The tooltip shows its name (if you used INSERTANS:xxx) or SGQA code (if you used the new naming system), the actual question, and its current value (or blank if not set). If the question type expects responses from an enumerated value set, the mapping of the codes to display values is show.
|-
|bold tan text||style='color:#a0522d; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||a lime replacement value||the value||Lime Replacement Strings (like {TOKEN:xxx}, {PRIVACY_MESSAGE}) are shown in bold tan text.
|-
|red text||style='color:#ff4500; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||assignment operator (=) ||warning message||If you use one of the assignment operator (=) that operator will be displayed in red text. This is meant to help prevent accidental re-assignment of values when you really meant to check whether a == b instead of setting the value of a = b.
|-
|normal black text||style='color:black; background-color:#eee8aa'|Sample||punctuation||none||All other punctuation within the expression is shown as normal black text.
|-
|red-boxed text||a bold red line surrounds the error||syntax error||description of the error||Any detected syntax errors are shown by surrounding the error with a red box. The tooltip shows the error. Examples include unmatched parentheses, use of undefined functions, passing the wrong number of arguments to functions, poorly structured expressions (e.g. missing operators between variables), trying to assign a new value to a read-only variable, trying to assign values to non-variables, or using unsupported syntax. Note that the syntax error dectection system may only report one error in an expression even if there are multiple errors; however, if any errors are detected, at least one error will be shown.
|}

=Additional Reading= 

==[[Expression Manager sample surveys|Expression Manager sample surveys]]== 

==[[ExpressionScript How-tos|Use Cases and HowTos]]== 

==[[ExpressionScript examples|Step-by-Step examples]]== 

==[[Expression Manager for developers|Reference for Developers]]== 

==[[Expression Manager roadmap|RoadMap/Status/ToDo List]]== 

</translate>

Theme editor

2017-11-28T23:06:54Z

Adamzammit: added queXMLPDF template button

<languages /> <translate>

=Introduction= 


LimeSurvey has a basic template and style system providing a theme-like capability found in many browser-based applications. They are simply termed '''"templates"''' here. The '''templates''' allow control over the look and feel of pages during a survey. A survey administrator can select a default template that will be used for each survey to further personalize it and improve its look and feel. Changes to a '''template''' can be as simple as adding a unique logo on the welcome page, changing background colors, or maybe adding new text colors for specific types of questions.


LimeSurvey comes with a set of templates right out of the box. These initial templates are defined by directories located in the LimeSurvey installation "templates" directory. Each template has it's own directory. Within the main directory of a template are numerous files: '''templates (.pstpl)''', '''cascading style sheets (.css)''', '''images''' ('''.jpg''' or '''.png'''), and maybe others.


Like in other theme-based systems, fragments of HTML code are stored in the .pstpl template files. These fragments are read and used to construct the page to be display to the end user (survey participant). Often '''keywords''' surrounded by curly braces are included in the files that are then replaced with the relevant text. You may find below an example of a template file content and its result when used in a survey page:


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div">
<div style='text-align: center;'><span style='color:red'>My New Survey</span></div>
<div style='text-align: center;'><span style='color:red'>This is a survey written by me to find out what sort of chocolate people like.</span></div>
</syntaxhighlight>


One gets a result that looks like:


<div class="simplebox"><div style='text-align: center;'><span style='color:red'>My New Survey</span></div>
<div style='text-align: center;'><span style='color:red'>This is a survey written by me to find out what sort of chocolate people like.</span></div></div>


Templates, being HTML code, tend to define the positioning and type of text to be displayed and similar structural features of the page. They often reference or include other files. Most of them reference a common cascading style sheets (CSS) file that defines the font style, color, size, background, and similar parameters common to all pages in the survey. Style sheets reference HTML '''class''' parameters that are associated with the various types of objects in the HTML code. This allows the style sheet to describe how to display each of the many types of text or other objects that may appear in multiple places. There are unique classes for each question type in LimeSurvey and thus giving detailed control over the appearance of each. Image files, like logos or special progress-bar constructors, may be referenced as well in the Template file. Finally, special keywords in curly braces are replaced with text defined in the survey for each language translation correspondent (for example, the 'Survey Title' or 'Question Text' for each language defined).


If you create a new custom template, please consider contributing it back to the LimeSurvey community and make it available to others. With your help, we can grow our repository of templates, surveys, and other add-ons to make LimeSurvey even better!
See our [https://www.limesurvey.org/index.php?option=com_sobipro&sid=55:Templates&Itemid=729 LimeSurvey template repository] where you can share your templates.

=Creating a new template= 


To be able to create a new template (or edit an existing template), you need [[Manage users#Set global permissions for a user|Template Editing user permission]] in LimeSurvey as well as permission to manipulate the files in the underlying operating system hosting your LimeSurvey installation.


<div class="simplebox"><span style='color:red'>'''Note of Warning:'''</span> If you change templates, you could also affect all the pre-existing surveys from your LimeSurvey installation. Templates are an advanced feature that require experience and HTML knowledge in order to make them running smoothly.</div>


The preferred way to create a new template is through the '''Template Editor''' (see below), which is located in the '''Configuration''' dialog. Some people may like to work directly with template files so that they can use their favorite text editor instead of the web interface. In this case, still use the Template Editor to first create your new template. This will create a new base template with all the files you need in the ''LimeSurvey_web_root/upload/templates/your_new_template'' directory. From there you can use your text editor to manually adjust the template files.


<div class="simplebox">'''Permissions Note:''' on unix/linux systems, these template files will be owned by the group and user where the web server is running (may be "www" for some systems). So, make sure you have enough access to edit these files, When you save them, make sure they don't change ownership! In this way, you can still use the web Template Editing interface if needed.</div><br />


A number of 'public' elements of LimeSurvey can be adjusted by a series of templates. The next section provides a very brief explanation of these templates.


{{Note|Template files may seem complex. Besides HTML, you might also need to understand CSS.}}

=The LimeSurvey template editor= 


To ease the understanding and quick update of a Template, LimeSurvey provides a '''Template Editor''' in the main '''administrative''' toolbar of the application. This Template Editor is only available to users [[Manage users#Set global permissions for a user|with the Templates permission]] and to superadministrators.

{{Alert|title=Attention|text=A template that is not correctly constructed can render a survey (that uses the respective template) inoperable. }}


The LimeSurvey template editor allows you to edit the contents of your templates online. Start the Template Editor by clicking on '''Template editor''' in the '''Configuration''' menu.


[[File:templates.png]]


The template editor page allows you to select the template you would like to edit/view.


[[File:Template-editor-2013-7-10_11_38_16.png|center]]

==The template menu== 

The following options are available:


*'''Create''': Allows you to create a new template. In order not to start from scratch, the template 'default' is copied.
*'''Import''': Allows you to import a template from a ZIP file.
*'''Export''': Allows you to export the current template to a ZIP file.
*'''Copy''': Allows you to make a new template by copying the current one.
*'''Rename''': Allows you to change the name of the template. It is generally used after copying or importing a template.
*'''Template''': It is a drop-down list that shows all the available templates that are located in your LimeSurvey installation.


*'''Screen''': It is a drop-down list which allows you to choose which particular survey page of that template you want to look at.
*'''Return to admin panel'''.

==Import/export/copy a template== 


When you '''export '''a template, a ZIP-file archive with all the files your template consists of will be created (.pstpl files, images, css files, ...). You can simply '''import''' the exported zip-file into another LimeSurvey installation by using the import feature or you can manually copy the archive into another LimeSurvey installation and extract it into the corresponding [[Template files location|template directory there]].


However, it is preferred to use the LimeSurvey template import/export/copy functions in the template editor.

==Page Structure / Template Use== 
*'''The Welcome Page:''' startpage.pstpl, welcome.pstpl, privacy.pstpl, navigator.pstpl, endpage.pstpl
*'''The Questions Pages:''' startpage.pstpl, survey.pstpl, startgroup.pstpl, groupdescription.pstpl, question.pstpl, endgroup.pstpl, endpage.pstpl
*'''The Final Page:''' startpage.pstpl, assessment.pstpl, completed.pstpl, endpage.pstpl

==Template Files== 


The following template files are used to produce your public survey and must exist in any new template folder you create:
*'''startpage.pstpl:''' Produces the start of each html page. It starts at the "<head>" tag, and should not contain the "<html>" tag. This 'very beginning' of a standard html page is written by the scripts. Please ensure that your startpage.pstpl files contains a <body> tag. Even though many browsers do not require strict adherence to the W3 HTML standards, the LimeSurvey script needs to find a <body> tag to run certain javascript elements. It is not expected to see many 'keywords' used in the startpage.pstpl file. However, you may wish to put the {SURVEYNAME} into the title. The startpage.pstpl file can contain code that ends in the corresponding endpage.pstpl file. For example, you can start a table in this file and close the table in the endpage.pstpl file. The startpage.pstpl and endpage.pstpl files wrap around every possible page used by LimeSurvey.
*'''survey.pstpl:''' This template is the second used on most pages and provides a space to put the survey name and description. This template does not have a corresponding 'closing' template, and subsequently you should close all tags opened in this template file (i.e.: don't leave a table open here because there is nowhere else to close it).
*'''welcome.pstpl:''' This template is only used in the welcome screen (which is also on the main page for 'all in one' surveys). You can use this to print out the welcome text, and other information that should be provided in the introduction. Like the 'survey.pstpl' file, there is no corresponding 'closing' template, so all tags opened in this template file should be closed as well.
*'''startgroup.pstpl:''' This template can provide a 'summary' wrap around for questions within a group. It has a matching 'endgroup.pstpl' template that can be used to close any opened tags in this file, so you can open a table within this.
*'''groupdescription.pstpl:''' This template file is used to display a description of a group. Please note that in the survey settings (access the ''Presentation & navigation settings'' by clicking on the '''Presentation''' tab) you can set if the group description should be shown or not. If not, then this file is not included at all.
*'''question.pstpl:''' This file contains the question, answer, and help text sections of your survey. In the "group by group" and "all in one" surveys, this template is cycled repeatedly with each question. There is no corresponding closing file for this and all tags should be closed.
*'''question_start.pstpl:''' This file contains the individual elements found at the start of a question. It is included within 'question.pstpl' via the {QUESTION} keyword. It is intended to allow template designers more control over the layout of a question. This template sits outside the normal templating system and '''was superseeded (as of LimeSurvey 1.87)'''. All keywords from this template are now available directly in question.pstpl.
*'''completed.pstpl:''' This page is displayed as the final page when the survey responses have been saved and the survey is over. It can be used to display a "forwarding link" as set in the survey setup.
*'''endgroup.pstpl:''' This file closes the group, and can be used to close off any tags opened in the startgroup.pstpl file
*'''navigator.pstpl:''' This file contains the buttons that navigate through the survey, "next", "prev", "last", "submit", "save so far" and the "clear all" link. It is used in all pages except the completed page.
*'''printanswers.pstpl:''' This file has the HTML wrapper necessary for the print version of the survey.
*'''print_group.pstpl:''' This file is the same as startgroup.pstpl and endgroup.pstpl, but for the print version of the survey.
*'''print_question.pstpl:''' This file is the same as question.pstpl, but for the print version of the survey.
*'''print_survey.pstpl:''' This file is the same as survey.pstpl, but for the print version of the survey.

== CSS and Javascript== 


Two files that are always used in a template are template.css (for CSS) and template.js (for Javascript).
*'''{TEMPLATECSS}:''' Add lines for default css, template.css, and template-rtl.css for rtl language.
*'''{TEMPLATEJS}:''' Add lines for default javascript files, template.js, and all js files needed for LimeSurvey.

=== Using Bootstrap=== 
LimeSurvey has Bootstrap 3 embedded, so you can style all your templates with the well documented Bootstrap classes.
For more information please refer to the [https://getbootstrap.com Bootstrap documentation].


The [https://github.com/flatlogic/awesome-bootstrap-checkbox Awesome-Bootstrap-Checkbox] plugin is also included. With it, you can use the typical Bootstrap color-classes (info,warning,danger,etc.) also with the suffix "-checkbox" or "-radio", though styling checkboxes and radios as you prefer.

=== Replacing default CSS or Javascript=== 


Some questions use specific files for Javascript or CSS. If you need to replace a function, use a cascading system. For javascript function, the last function read is the function used.

==Other Template Files== 


The '''privacy.pstpl''', '''invitationemail.pstpl''', '''reminderemail.pstpl''', and '''confirmationemail.pstpl''' are no longer used by LimeSurvey and defaults are instead set in the applicable language files. The email messages can now be edited on a survey by survey basis.

==Standard Pages== 


There are ten standard pages that a survey participant may see in the course of taking or accessing the LimeSurvey application. Each is constructed from a number of common '''Template''' files from the '''Template''' specified in the settings of the survey. The table below indicates which template files are used in constructing each of these pages.


{| class="wikitable"
! '''Survey Pages/'''<br />'''Template Files'''!!Survey<br />List!!Welcome!!Question!!Completed!!Clear All!!Register!!Load!!Save!!Print<br />Answers!!Print<br />Survey
|-
|SurveyList||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || || || ||
|-
|Welcome|| ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || || ||
|-
|Privacy|| ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || || ||
|-
|Navigator|| ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || ||
|-
|Survey|| || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || ||
|-
|StartGroup|| || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || ||
|-
|GroupDescription|| || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || ||
|-
|Question<span style='color:red'>'''*'''</span>|| || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || ||
|-
|EndGroup|| || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || || ||
|-
|Assessment|| || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || ||
|-
|Completed|| || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || || ||
|-
|ClearAll|| || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || || ||
|-
|Register|| || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || || ||
|-
|Load|| || || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| || ||
|-
|Save|| || || || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]|| ||
|-
|PrintAnswers|| || || || || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||
|-
|Print Survey || || || || || || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]
|-
|Print Group || || || || || || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]
|-
|Print Question || || || || || || || || || ||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]
|-
|StartPage<br />EndPage<br />Template.css||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||align="center" | [[File:check.gif]]||
|}


<span style='color:red'>'''*'''</span>NOTE: In version 1.90+, this replaces question.pstpl AND question_start.pstpl. If you are using an old custom template, you need to add the following line to the beginning of question.pstpl:<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div"><div {QUESTION_ESSENTIALS} class="{QUESTION_CLASS}{QUESTION_MAN_CLASS}{QUESTION_INPUT_ERROR_CLASS}"></syntaxhighlight>And then add the corresponding closing tag to the end of question.pstpl:<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div"></div></syntaxhighlight>


<span style='color:red'>'''*'''</span>NOTE: In version 1.91 and earlier, LimeSurvey js files are not included in the template. In version 2, '''you have to use {TEMPLATEJS} in one of your template file''' to add the link to the js file. You can add it in startpage.pstpl or in endpage.pstpl. You can remove the {TEMPLATEURL}/template.js line and you have to replace with {TEMPLATEJS} to update a personal template.

==The File Control Section== 


In the "file control" window on the left, you can click on one of the template files that is used to compile the page. You can see the ''Screen part'', JavaScript, and CSS files. The HTML code for that file will then appear in the "Now editing" window in the center. If the template is editable (determined by directory permissions) you can then make any changes and save them.

<center>[[File:File Control Section.png|center]]</center>


The "Other files" window shows a list of all other files from the template directory. You can use the right side to '''upload and select image files (your pics, logos,...) or other files needed to create your template'''.

Instead of using a link for each picture, utilize the field string {TEMPLATEURL}. So, instead of:


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div">img src='/limesurvey/templates/yourtemplate/files/mypicture.jpg'</syntaxhighlight>
You can use {{NewIn|2.50}}:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div">img src='{TEMPLATEURL}files/mypicture.jpg'</syntaxhighlight>


In LimeSurvey versions before 2.50 use:
<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div">img src='{TEMPLATEURL}mypicture.jpg'</syntaxhighlight>


A "sample" of the template page you are editing will be visible in the bottom of the screen. There is no way to delete a template from the template editor. This must be done by accessing the underlying directory and deleting manually the files from there. You also have the possibility to select different screen resolutions in order to better evaluate the feel and look of the template.


<div class="simplebox">'''Note:''' The shipped templates cannot be edited using the template editor. If you want to modify them, create a copy first and edit the copy.</div>

==Template files location== 


LimeSurvey stores each of the 'standard' templates in their own distinct sub-directory within the ''/templates'' directory that is kept in the public directory with the other LimeSurvey public files. Customized user templates are stored in the ''/upload/templates'' directory.


There should '''ALWAYS''' be a "default" directory in the templates directory. This template is used by default and as a fall-back if a template folder doesn't exist, or can't be found. It comes installed by default.


You can use any image files that you upload into the template management area with the help of this syntax:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">{TEMPLATEURL}filename.xyz</syntaxhighlight>

=Styling questions with CSS= 


Styling of questions in CSS has become much easier. Each question type has now a unique class. The mandatory questions have an additional mandatory class. For example, for a non-mandatory question:


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div"><div id="question5" class="gender">
...
</div></syntaxhighlight>


and if the question is mandatory:


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div"><div id="question5" class="gender mandatory">
...
</div></syntaxhighlight>


and if the question is mandatory, but the user didn't answer it or if there is validation on a question:


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div"><div id="question5" class="gender mandatory input-error">
...
</div></syntaxhighlight>


and if the question has validation applied, but the user hasn't answered correctly:


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div"><div id="question6" class="text-short input-error">
...
</div></syntaxhighlight>

==Global classes for question part== 


These classes are used for each question type. Some question types use only one or two classes, while others may use much more.


{| class="wikitable alternance"
|+ Global classes
|-
! scope="col" | Class name
! scope="col" | Part
! scope="col" | Question type
! scope="col" | Examples
! scope="col" | Note
|-
! scope="row" | .question {{ObsoleteIn|3.0}}
| All question block
| All question type
|<p class="question">, <ul class="question">, <table class="question">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-answers {{NewIn|3.0}}
| All question block
| All question type
|<div class="ls-answers ">, <ul class="ls-answers ">, <table class="ls-answers">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .subquestions-list
| List of subquestion
| Multi choice question, array question type
| <ul class="subquestions-list">, <table class="subquestions-list">
| .questions-list is used too
|-
! scope="row" | .answers-list
| List of answers
| Single choice question, array question type, Multi input text question
| <ul class="answers-list">, <table class="answers-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .answer-item
| The answer part: one answer
| Single choice question, array question type, Multi input text question
| <li class="answer-item">, <td class="answer-item">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .noanswer-item
| The answer part for no answer
| Single choice question, array question type
| <li class="noanswer-item">, <td class="noanswer-item">
| No answer is an answer too, then have double class noanswer-item and answer-item
|-
! scope="row" | .question-item
| The question part: one question
| Multi text question, array question type
| <li class="question-item">, <tr class="question-item">
| Some answers are questions too. Then we have a lot of class="question-item answer-item"
|-
! scope="row" | .checkbox-list
| A list of checkbox
| Multi choice question, array number (checkbox) question type
| <ul class="checkbox-list">, <tr class="checkbox-list">
| Some question types use multi-list class, like checkbox with comment: class="checkbox-list text-list"
|-
! scope="row" | .checkbox-array {{NewIn|3.0}}
| A array of checkbox
| Array (numbers) with checkbox option
| <table class="checkbox-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .checkbox-item
| The answer part with a checkbox
| Multi choice question, array number (checkbox) question type
| <li class="checkbox-item">, <td class="checkbox-item">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .radio-list
| A list of radio item
| Single choice question, array question type (each row)
| <ul class="radio-list">, <tr class="radio-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .radio-array {{NewIn|3.0}}
| A array of radio item
| Array question type
| <table class="radio-array">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .radio-item
| The answer part with a radio
| Single choice question, array question type
| <li class="radio-item">, <td class="radio-item">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .text-list
| A list of text input
| Multi text question type, array of text
| <ul class="text-list">, <tr class="text-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .text-item
| The answer part of a text input
| Multi text question type, array of text
| <li class="text-item">, <td class="text-item">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .numeric-list
| A list of text input with numeric only answer
| Multi numeric question type, array of number
| <ul class="text-list numeric-list">, <tr class="text-list numeric-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .number-list
| A list of text input with numeric only answer (each row)
| Multi numeric question type, array of number
| <ul class="text-list numeric-list">, <tr class="text-list numeric-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .number-array {{NewIn|3.0}}
| The answer part of a numeric input
| Array of number
| <table class="number-array">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .select-list {{ObsoleteIn|2.50}}
| A list of select
| Array numbers, Dual scale array (select)
| <table class="select-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .dropdown-list {{NewIn|2.50}}
| A list of select
| Array numbers, Dual scale array (select) (each row)
| <table class="dropdown-list">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .dropdown-array {{NewIn|3.0}}
| A array of dropdown
| Array numbers, Dual scale array (select)
| <table class="dropdown-array">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .select-item {{ObsoleteIn|2.50}}
| The answer part of a select
| Array numbers, Dual scale array (select), single choice with select
| <p class="select-item">, <td class="select-item">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .dropdown-item {{NewIn|2.50}}
| The answer part of a select
| Array numbers, Dual scale array (select), single choice with select
| <p class="dropdown-item">, <td class="dropdown-item">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .hide {{ObsoleteIn|3.0}}
| Used for accessibility: hidden with css but read by screenreader, since 2.50 : you can use sr-only from bootstrap
| Short text question
| <label class="hide">
| Can be used for other purposes
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-js-hidden {{NewIn|3.0}}
| Used for part to be hidden if javascript is activated
| Button for example
| <div class="ls-js-hidden">
| LimeSurvey core used it, but you can use it too in your template
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-js-hidden-sr {{NewIn|3.0}}
| Used for accessibility: hide it if js is activated, but always show if user use a screenreader
| Button for example
| <a class="ls-js-hidden-sr">
| Button
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-no-js-hidden {{NewIn|3.0}}
| Used for part to be hidden if javascript is not activated
| Link
| <a class="ls-no-js-hidden">
| LimeSurvey core used it for inactive link if javascript is not activated
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-label-xs-visibility {{NewIn|3.0}}
| Label to be hidden in big screen, but show with little screen (with no more table) and to screenreader
| label
| <label class="ls-no-js-hidden">
| Used for label inside table cell of array question type
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-input-group-extra {{NewIn|3.0}}
| Same usage of boostrap input-group-addon, but without the border and the background.
| right suffix
| <div class="ls-input-group-extra">
| Used for right and left suffix (global)
|-
! scope="row" | .checkbox {{ObsoleteIn|3.0}}
| input[type=checkbox]
| Question with checkbox
| <input type="checkbox" class="checkbox">
| With modern browser: not needed, but some old browser need this
|-
! scope="row" | .radio {{ObsoleteIn|3.0}}
| input[type=radio]
| Question with radio
| <input type="radio" class="radio">
| With modern browser: not needed, but some old browser need this
|-
! scope="row" | .text
| input[type=text]
| Question with input text, or textarea
| <textarea class="text">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .answertext
| Array question type
| Answer part of array question type
| <th class="answertext">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .col-answers
| Array question type
| Column of answers
| <col class="col-answers">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .odd .even {{ObsoleteIn|2.50}}
| Array question type
| Alternation for column
| <col class="odd">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .array1 .array2 {{ObsoleteIn|3.0}}
| Array question type
| Alternation for line
| <tr class="array1">
|
|-
! scope="row" | .ls-odd .ls-even {{NewIn|3.0}}
| Array question type
| Alternation for sub-question and Y axis
| <tr class="ls-odd">
|
|}

=== Some example of question part with classes=== 


'''Text-short question type:'''
</translate><source lang="html4strict">
<p class="question answer-item text-item ">
<label class="hide label" for="answerSGQA">Answer</label><input type="text" value="" id="answerSGQA" name="SGQA" size="50" class="text empty">
</p>
</source><translate>


'''Multiple short text'''
</translate><source lang="html4strict">
<ul class="subquestions-list questions-list text-list">
<li class="question-item answer-item text-item" id="javatbdSGQA">
<label for="answerSGQA">Some example subquestion</label>
<span><input type="text" value="" id="answerSGQA" name="SGQA" size="20" class="text empty"></span>
</li>
</ul>
</source><translate>


'''Array question type'''
</translate><source lang="html4strict">
<table class="question subquestion-list questions-list ">
<caption class="hide read">Some explanation for accessibility.</caption>
<colgroup class="col-responses">
<col width="50%" class="col-answers">
<col width="25%" class="odd">
<col width="13.3%" class="col-no-answer even">
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="array1 dontread">
<td> </td>
<th>1</th>
<th>No answer</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="array2 answers-list radio-list" id="javatbdSGQ">
<th width="20%" class="answertext">Some example subquestion
</th>
<td class="answer_cell_001 answer-item radio-item">
<label for="answerSGQA" class="hide read">1</label>
<input type="radio" value="1" id="answerSGQA" name="SGQA" class="radio">
</td>
<td class="answer-item radio-item noanswer-item">
<label for="answerSGQA" class="hide read">No answer</label>
<input type="radio" value="" id="answerSGQA" name="SGQA" class="radio">
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</source><translate>

==The full list of question classes== 


{|
|'''Question Type'''||'''Question Class'''||'''Question ID'''
|-
|5 point choice||.choice-5-pt-radio||5
|-
|Array (10 point choice)||.array-10-pt||B
|-
|Array (5 point choice)||.array-5-pt||A
|-
|Array (Flexible Labels) dual scale||.array-flexible-duel-scale ||1
|-
|Array (Increase, Same, Decrease)||.array-increase-same-decrease||E
|-
|Array (Multi Flexible) (Numbers)||.array-multi-flexi ||:
|-
|Array (Multi Flexible) (Text)||.array-multi-flexi-text||;
|-
|Array (Yes/No/Uncertain)||.array-yes-uncertain-no||C
|-
|Array (flexible labels)||.array-flexible-row ||F
|-
|Array (flexible labels) by column||.array-flexible-column||H
|-
|Boilerplate question||.boilerplate||X
|-
|Date||.date||D
|-
|Gender||.gender||G
|-
|Huge free text||.text-huge||U
|-
|Language switch||.language||I
|-
|List (dropdown)||.list-dropdown||!
|-
|List (radio)||.list-radio||L
|-
|List with comment||.list-with-comment||O
|-
|Long free text||.text-long||T
|-
|Multiple numerical input||.numeric-multi||K
|-
|Multiple options||.multiple-opt||M
|-
|Multiple options with comments||.multiple-opt-comments||P
|-
|Multiple short text||.multiple-short-txt||Q
|-
|Numerical input||.numeric||N
|-
|Ranking||.ranking||R
|-
|Short free text||.text-short||S
|-
|Yes/No||.yes-no||Y
|-
|
|}

==The full list of validation classes== 


<div class="simplebox">Note: Prior to 1.92, only .mandatory and .input-error classes were available.</div>


These apply to the help and/or validation tip messages so that each type can be individually styled.


The .hide-tip option and .input-error options interact by default so that you can have validation tips hidden. However, they do appear when there are validation errors and disappear again when those errors are rectified.


All of these are designed to eliminate the need for pop-up alert messages. Instead, tips can appear/disappear as needed and are color-coded to indicate whether the answers pass the validation criteria.


Furthermore, when you first visit a page that has unmet validation criteria, you can color-code the tips in a pleasing color to show which validation criteria have not been met yet; then re-display the page using a harsher color if the person submits the page with lingering validation errors.


{|
|'''Purpose'''||'''CSS Class'''||'''Description'''
|-
|Mandatory||.mandatory||the question is mandatory
|-
|User input error||.input-error||the question had at least one validation error
|-
|Hide Tip||.hide-tip||added if you use the hide_tip option
|-
|Num answers||.em_num_answers||for for min_answers and max_answers
|-
|Value range||.em_value_range||for min/max_num_value_n and multiflexible_min/max
|-
|Sum range||.em_sum_range||for min/max/equals_num_value
|-
|Regex validation||.em_regex_validation||for regular-expression validation of the question
|-
|Question-level validation function||.em_q_fn_validation||for the em_validation_q option
|-
|Subquestion-level validation function||.em_sq_fn_validation||for the em_validation_sq option
|-
|Other comment mandatory||.em_other_comment_mandatory||for other_comment_mandatory option - shows when "other" is selected but associated comment is missing.
|-
|
|}

==Importing styles into your custom template== 


The custom question styles are near the bottom of each template's CSS file and start with:<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">/* --------------------------- START: Question styles ------------------------------ */</syntaxhighlight>


If you're styling your own custom template, you should be able to copy everything after the above one from ''templates/default/template.css'' (for table-based layouts) or ''/templates/limespired/template.css'' (for CSS-based layouts) into your own style sheet without any impact on your other styles.

==Internet Explorer conditional style sheets== 


Because of the marked discrepancies in rendering between IE6 & IE7 and the other browsers, there are special IE conditional style sheets included for each template.


<source lang="html4strict" enclose="div">



</source>


You should include the above code within your '''startpage.pstpl''' and copies of both the IE style sheets from either ''/templates/default/'' or ''/templates/limespired'' for Tables base layout and CSS based layout respectively.


<div class="simplebox">'''Note:''' If you copy the styles into your own style sheet you will almost certainly need to tweak them.</div>

===Alternative solution for Internet explorer=== 


You can put a conditional class for body in startpage.pstpl and use this class in your template.css. This method is used in the citronade template{{ObsoleteIn|2.06}}. Adding a js / no-js class to have javascript / no javascript system.


<source lang="html4strict">



<body id="body" class="lang-{SURVEYLANGUAGE} {SURVEYFORMAT} no-js">
<script type='text/javascript'>/*<![CDATA[*/(function(H){ H.className=H.className.replace(/\bno-js\b/,'js') })(document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]);/*]]>*/</script></source>


And in template.css use:


<source lang="css">.ie6{/*specific for internet explorer 6*/}
.ielt8{/*specific for internet explorer 6 and 7*/}
.ie{/*specific for all internet explorer */}</source>

== Right-to-Left (RTL) Languages and justify== 


The text editor within LimeSurvey is able to format RTL text. However, the editor itself shows the RTL language in a left to right format when justified. This is just an editor display issue. The RTL and justified question or text will display correctly from right to left, even when justified, in your survey or on preview.

==Keywords== 


Keywords within a template file get replaced by the current survey information. They are surrounded by curly brackets, for example: {SURVEYNAME}.


The following strings will be replaced by LimeSurvey when parsing the template file and presenting it to survey users. These field strings will work on almost every template except for the 'Completed Page'. (Most of these strings can be found in the common.php file. If it's not there, look in the index.php file.)


{|class=wikitable
!'''Keyword'''!!'''Template files'''!!'''Description'''
|-
|{SURVEYNAME}||All Files||The survey title
|-
|{SURVEYDESCRIPTION}||All Files||The survey description
|-
|{WELCOME}||All files (mainly for welcome.pstpl)||The survey 'welcome' text
|-
|{PERCENTCOMPLETE}||survey.pstpl||A small graph showing the percentage of the survey completed
|-
|{GROUPNAME}||startgroup.pstpl, groupdescription.pstpl, endgroup.pstpl||Displays the current group name
|-
|{GROUPDESCRIPTION}||startgroup.pstpl, groupdescription.pstpl, endgroup.pstpl||Displays the current group description
|-
|{NUMBEROFQUESTIONS}||welcome.pstpl||Displays the total number of questions in the survey (just the number)
|-
|{THEREAREXQUESTIONS}||welcome.pstpl||Displays the sentence "There are X questions in this survey" - from the relevant language file. The X is replaced with the number of questions. Note that this will also work appropriately for singular or plural. If there is only 1 question, it will print "There is 1 question in this survey".
|-
|{CHECKJAVASCRIPT}||All files (mainly for welcome.pstpl)||Warning message when end-user browser have javascript disabled
|-
|{QUESTION}||Question.pstpl||('''Has been superseeded as of LS1.87''') Displays the current question text (The format of {QUESTION} can customised by editing 'question_start.pstpl') Use the following: {QUESTION_TEXT}, {QUESTION_MANDATORY}, {QUESTION_HELP}, {QUESTION_MAN_MESSAGE}, {QUESTION_VALID_MESSAGE}, {QUESTION_INPUT_ERROR_CLASS}, and appropriate wrapping HTML instead of {QUESTION}
|-
|{ANSWER}||question.pstpl, print_question.pstpl||presents the answer form for the current question
|-
|{SGQ}||question.pstpl, question text||Can be used in the question text itself to reference the input field of the question dynamically by displaying the Survey-Group-Question id for the current question. (as of svn build 9755)
|-
|{QUESTIONHELP}||question.pstpl, print_question.pstpl||Displays help text (predefined tip for question type) for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_CLASS}||question.pstpl, print_question.pstpl||unique class for each question type. (To be included in the question's wrapping tag.)
|-
|{QUESTION_CODE}||question.pstpl, print_question.pstpl||Displays the current question code
|-
|{QUESTION_ESSENTIALS}||question.pstpl||the question ID and (if a question is conditional), 'style="display:none;"'. (To be included in the question's wrapping tag.)
|-
|{QUESTION_HELP}||question.pstp, question_start.pstpl||Displays the user defined help text for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_TYPE_HELP}||print_question.pstp||Displays the user defined help text for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_INPUT_ERROR_CLASS}||question.pstp, question_start.pstpl||Provides a class if there was user input error
|-
|{QUESTION_ID}||print_question.pstp||Provides a unique ID for each question to allow styling for specific questions
|-
|{QUESTION_TEXT}||question.pstp, print_question.pstp, question_start.pstpl||Displays the text for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_MANDATORY}||question.pstp, print_question.pstp, question_start.pstpl||Displays the translated 'Mandatory' text for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_MAN_CLASS}||question.pstpl, print_question.pstpl||class if a question is mandatory. (To be included in the question's wrapping tag.)
|-
|{QUESTION_MAN_MESSAGE}||question.pstp, print_question.pstp, question_start.pstpl||Displays the translated 'Mandatory' help message text for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_NUMBER}||print_question.pstpl||Incremental count of questions.
|-
|{QUESTION_VALID_MESSAGE}||question.pstp, print_question.pstp, question_start.pstpl||Displays the translated valid help message text for the current question
|-
|{QUESTION_SCENARIO}||print_question.pstp||Prints out the 'scenario' text for conditional questions.
|-
|{NAVIGATOR}||navigator.pstpl||Displays navigation buttons (next, prev, last)
|-
|{CLEARALL}||All files (but intended for navigator.pstpl)||Displays the "Exit and Clear Results" link
|-
|{COMPLETED}||completed.pstpl||Displays the 'completed' message for registering, will change depending on whether the attribute_1 and attribute_2 fields are set.
|-
|{URL}||completed.pstpl||Displays the survey 'url' and 'url text'
|-
|{PRIVACYMESSAGE}||privacy.pstpl||The privacy message is shown if you set your survey to be anonymous. [[Translating LimeSurvey|The text can be edited/translated]] in the language files. This can also be changed manually by editing the privacy.pstpl template you wish to use.
|-
|{TEMPLATEURL}||All Files||The URL to the current template location (useful for referencing image files in your template)
|-
|{SURVEYRESOURCESURL}||All Files||The URL to the current uploaded files for this survey location (useful for referencing image files in your question, group, ....)
|-
|{SUBMITCOMPLETE}||endpage.pstpl||The statement (from the language files) that tells the user they have completed the survey, and to press the "Submit" button
|-
|{SUBMITREVIEW}||survey.pstpl||The statement (from the language files) that tells the user they can review/change the answers they have made by clicking "<< prev"
|-
|{SAVEDID}||All Files||Displays 'Response ID' of user
|-
|-
|{QUEXMLPDF}||All Files||Displays button to export the queXML PDF of questionnaire including answers entered up until the point that has been completed in the survey.
|-
|{TOKEN:FIRSTNAME}||All Files||***If survey answers are NOT ANONYMOUS - gets replaced with the users first name from the tokens table
|-
|{TOKEN:LASTNAME}||All Files||***If survey answers are NOT ANONYMOUS - gets replaced with the users last name from the tokens table***
|-
|{TOKEN:EMAIL}||All Files||***If survey answers are NOT ANONYMOUS - gets replaced with the users email from the tokens table***
|-
|{TOKEN:ATTRIBUTE_1}||All Files||***If survey answers are NOT ANONYMOUS - gets replaced with the users attribute_1 from the tokens table***
|-
|{TOKEN:ATTRIBUTE_2}||All Files||***If survey answers are NOT ANONYMOUS - gets replaced with the users attribute_2 from the tokens table***
|-
|{ANSWERSCLEARED}||Preferably in navigator.pstpl||The "Answers Cleared" statement from the language files
|-
|{RESTART}||clearall.pstpl||URL to restart the survey
|-
|{REGISTERERROR}||register.pstpl||Shows any error messages in the register page (ie: "You must include an email address")
|-
|{REGISTERMESSAGE1}||register.pstpl||The statement "You must be registered to complete this survey" from the language files
|-
|{REGISTERMESSAGE2}||register.pstpl||Details about registering from the language files
|-
|{REGISTERFORM}||register.pstpl||The actual form for registering, will change depending on whether the attribute_1 and attribute_2 fields are set.
|-
|{SAVE}||Works suitable on navigator.pstpl||Displays the 'Save your responses so far' button to offer the user to save and come back later to continue the survey. If the Save option is deactivated in the survey properties the tag will not be shown and ignored.
|-
|{LANGUAGECHANGER}||survey.pstpl||Displays a switch in multilingual surveys to change the question.
|}

==Input/Buttons== 


Each "input" type in a survey has been given its own class name, so that you can add CSS to your "startpage.pstpl" file and have some control over the appearance of form buttons and inputs. These class names are as follows:
*'''submit''' (Submit Buttons)
*'''text''' (Text Inputs - for short free text, date, and numerical type)
*'''answertext''' (Text of answers)
*'''radio''' (Radio Buttons)
*'''checkbox''' (Check Boxes)
*'''select''' (Select / List Boxes)
*'''textarea''' (Large text inputs - for long free text)
*'''clearall''' (The "Exit and Clear Survey" link)
*'''rank''' (The rank style question. Doesn't set the colour of the select box or the text boxes, but it does allow the changing of background colour, text colour, size etc., for the rest of the ranking question)
*'''graph''' (The "percentage completed" graph table)
*'''innergraph''' (The table inside the graph table - this contains the 0% and 100% text. Use this for changing the size of this text)
*'''question''' (General settings for any question that is displayed within a table. Generally, you should use this to make sure that their font size and color is the same as you have used elsewhere as a default)
*'''mandatory''' (Mandatory questions)
*'''input-error''' (User input error - for if a user has made a mistake with a mandatory question or question with validation)
*'''array1''' and '''array2''' (These two styles are cycled when presenting the range of answers for an array type question. This allows you to set an alternating background color for these question types. '''Array1''' is also used for the column headings in these question types)
*'''errormandatory''' (Sets the color and style of the "This question is mandatory" error message)
*'''warningjs''' (Sets the color and style of the warning message displayed if the participant's browser has javascript disabled)


There are also some elements that can be accessed using the ID of the element ('''#ID''' in CSS):
*'''surveycontact''' (The contact message shown on the start page)
*'''tokenmessage''' (used for messages inside the survey, e.g. the session expired error message)


Because you can edit all the HTML aspects, there's no reason to surround your templates with a
<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div"><div class='new_name'></div></syntaxhighlight>
and then define a css for that new_name class.

==Styling the progress bar== 


The progress bar appearance can be modified with CSS.


To change the background color of the bar, add something like the following to the end of your template.css file:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">#progress-wrapper .ui-widget-header {
background-color: #3300FF;
}</syntaxhighlight>


To change the border color of the bar, add something like the following to the end of your template.css file:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">#progress-wrapper .ui-widget-content,
#progress-wrapper .ui-widget-header {
border: 1px solid #FF0000;
}</syntaxhighlight>

==Advanced Features Available to Developers== 


LimeSurvey has integrated some user-made patches that permits some special changes. These very advanced features (generally) require changes to the underlying code base of LimeSurvey and should be done carefully in order not to introduce security holes.

===Support for your own Javascript functions=== 


Some users may need to run Javascript on the survey pages, but calling '''checkconditions()''' in the BODY element made it impossible to do so. This call has been replaced with a small JavaScript function in the HEAD that sniffs for the existence of '''checkconditions()''' and '''template_onload()''' before calling them. In this way, a template author can create his or her own '''template_onload()''' function in the HEAD that replaces the default one.


*Disable XSS filter - in Global settings -> Security, set "Filter HTML for XSS" to No.
*Enter your script in the source of a question or group description.

{{Note|For further details, see the [[Workarounds: Manipulating a survey at runtime using Javascript#How to use Script (eg. JavaScript etc.) in LimeSurvey?|workaround section]].}}

=Videos on Templates= 


This video will demonstrate the basic and advanced template functions that are available to all LimeSurvey users. This includes changing the appearance of certain forms and inserting custom graphics. Additionally, it will thoroughly walk you through on how to edit and preview specific page templates, importing/exporting templates, modify appearance of questions in the CSS, and customizing survey description page.

Video - needed

=Tips & Tricks= 

==Some language specific element== 


If you want to have some language specific sentence in a survey, for example a help at the end of each page, you can add in a .pstl file a sentence and hidding it for other language. If we hide it in the template.css, we can use the pseudo selector :lang, but we use some class for better compatibility.


Below, there are two help sentences, in French and English. Put this on endpage.pstpl:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div"><div class="fr" lang="fr">Pour de l'aide en direct appelez le 000000</div>
<div class="en" lang="en">For some help, please call 000000</div></syntaxhighlight>


and in template.css:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">.lang-fr .en{display:none}
.lang-en .fr{display:none}</syntaxhighlight>

==Change the layout of the survey page== 


After editing and saving a template, it applies to a survey list page only if it is selected from the settings of the survey. To make it the default template, go under the '''General tab''' located in the '''Global settings''' of your LimeSurvey installation and choose the desired template. From now on, all the templates that use the "default" option as template plus the ones that are going to be newly created, will use the newly selected default template.


To use your current template for this page, you have to change the according setting from '''Global settings'''. In older versions, this change can be done by editing the $defaulttemplate setting from the config file: copy this setting from config-defaults.php to config.php which overrides config-defaults.php and edit this setting to <code>$defaulttemplate = 'yourtemplatename';</code>.

==Import/Export of templates: Mac users== 


<u>Mac users</u>, please note that the Mac OSX default archive utility may have problems with zip folders "generated on the fly".


A workaround is to unix'es unzip from the command line:


$ unzip template.zip -d template


Archive: template.zip


inflating: template/startpage


inflating: ...


Another workaround is to use scripts in their mac-compiled counterparts.

==Changing your templates traffic light from red to green== 


If you haven't already done this, set the admin directory to read/write/execute (777). The files within it, however, may be set to read/execute only (chmod 755).


*Go to file directory and find the templates directory.


*Change permission on eg "vallendar" (or any template of your choice) directory to read 777.


*Done! The red traffic light on "vallendar" is now green.


{{Box|To restrict access (for safety reasons), when you are done editing template files, change all templates files back to what they were (eg 644).}}

==Replacing the help icon== 


When a question help text is shown, then an help.gif image is used from the default template folder.


You can replace this image by uploading a new help.gif, help.png or help.jpg in your custom template folder. It will then be automatically used instead of the default help icon.

==Replacing an existing logo== 


'''Note''': In the '''default'' Template of 2.50, there is no preembedded logo. Read further our [[#Adding_your_own_logo |wiki on how to add your own logo]].


1. To edit the logo go to the ''<u>template.css</u>'' file which you can find it here:


<center>[[File:t1.PNG|200px]]</center>


2. Click the search button to find occurrences of logo related styles and search for ''logo''


<center>[[File:2.png|200px]]</center>


4. Edit the main style file.


You will see something similar to:


<center>[[File:t4.PNG|500px]]</center>


If you want to change the image, just replace logo.gif with another image link. Example: (<u>logo.png</u> or <u>logo.jpg</u>).


If you want to change the image size, adjust width and height (in pixels) like this:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">width:100px; height:100px;</syntaxhighlight>

==Adding your own logo== 


1. Find and open the '''startpage.pstpl''' template file.


<center>[[File:startpage.pstpl.png]]</center>


2. After this
<source lang="html4strict" ><div id="topContainer" class="jumbotron"></source>
add this line to '''startpage.pstpl''':
<source lang="html4strict">
<div class="container"><img id='page_logo' src='{TEMPLATEURL}/files/logo.png' class="clearfix pull-right" /></div>
</source>


3. To upload your own logo, go to the template editor and upload your logo.


<center>[[File:uploadyourlogo.png]]</center>


To position your logo, please use one of the following css classes:


*'''If you want the logo to be placed on the left side:'''


<source>clearfix pull-left</source>


*'''If you want the logo to be placed on the right side:'''


<source>clearfix pull-right</source>


*'''If you want to center the logo'''


<source>clearfix center-block</source>

==Use the same template with different logos== 


If you want to use the same template for all surveys and just want to change the logo for each survey, you can use the {SID} placeholder in the template .pstpl file and thereby refer to different images:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div"><img src="{TEMPLATEURL}files/logoImage-{SID}.png"></syntaxhighlight>

==Remove the default help to all question (hide_tip)== 


There are 3 solutions to remove the default help:
# like a hide_tip attribute but for all question and survey.
# you can remove the {QUESTIONHELP} and its container from the file question.pstl. However, it can be a bad idea for the screenreader.
# for the default template and some other, add this at the end of tempate.css


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">span.questionhelp{display:none;}</syntaxhighlight>

== Display custom favicon== 


A favicon is the little icon you see in the browser's address bar, list of bookmarks or tab. You can display your own icon as follows:
#Create a favicon - google will find you lots of free favicon generators.
#Name your new favicon "favicon.ico" and place it in your template /files directory.
#Add the following code to your '''startpage.pstpl''' before the </head> tag.


<syntaxhighlight lang="html4strict" enclose="div"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="{TEMPLATEURL}files/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="icon" href="{TEMPLATEURL}files/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"></syntaxhighlight>

== Different appearance for survey-/question-pages== 


If you want LimeSurvey to change the appearance of every second page (i.e. of even and odd survey pages), you can use '''.page-odd''' class in your CSS file to change the appearance of odd pages.


An example from default template of LimeSurvey 1.91+:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">
.page-odd table.question-group {
background-color: #D2F2D3;
}</syntaxhighlight>


If you do '''not''' want differentiate even and odd pages, find all instances of ''.page-odd'' in template.css and remove those styles.

==Create a vertical separator border for dual scale array== 


To create a vertical separator border for a dual scale array, you can add the following lines to your '''template.css'''-file.


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">
table.question thead td.header_separator,
table.question tbody td.dual_scale_separator
{
border-right:solid 1px #00A8E1;
}
</syntaxhighlight>


''header_separator'' is used to adress the separator for the header "td". The "dual_scale_separator" is used to address the separator column in the dual scale array.

==Hide the survey contact message shown on the start page/survey list== 


To hide the "Please contact ..." message on the start page (with the survey list), you can add the following to the '''$(document).ready''' function in the '''template.js''' of your used design template:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">


$('#surveycontact').hide(); //Hides the survey contact message


</syntaxhighlight>

==Remove the survey contact message shown on error messages== 


If you want to remove the survey contact message from error messages, it'll be trickier. You can add the function from below. It calls the '''$(document).ready''' function in the '''template.css''' of your used design template:


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">
removeContactAdressFromMessage(); //Removes the survey contact message from error messages
</syntaxhighlight>


and add the following function to your *template.js* file


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">
function removeContactAdressFromMessage()
{
if ($('#tokenmessage').length > 0)
{
var oldMessage = $('#tokenmessage').html();
var indexContact = oldMessage.indexOf('Bitte kontaktieren');
var newMessage = oldMessage.substr(0, indexContact);
$('#tokenmessage').html(newMessage);
}
}
</syntaxhighlight>


It will probably not work for a survey in English language and has to be extended when used for multilingual surveys. But it's an idea/tip on how to solve this.

==How to deal with multilingual question attributes (before version 2.0 at which those were added)== 


If you have a multilingual survey and e. g. want to use a different string for the "other" field, this could only be done for the base language (until this feature was added at LimeSurvey 2.0). To work around this, paste in the field to change the label for "other":


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div"><span class="en">New label</span><span class="fr">Nouveau label</span></syntaxhighlight>


Add in the template.css of your template (at ''/limesurvey/upload/templates/<yourtemplatename>/template.css''):


<syntaxhighlight lang="php" enclose="div">html:lang(en) .fr{display:none}
html:lang(fr) .en{display:none}</syntaxhighlight>

=Custom Question Views (version 2.5)= 


<div class="simplebox">'''Note:''' This is a temporary feature to be replaced in the future by question object (it will be very easy to move custom views to question object). It is disabled by default.</div>


As of version 2.5, you can create template-specific custom views for questions and some of their incorporated elements. This is useful if you want to modify the HTML layout of a particular question type for one or more surveys.


*In application/config/config.php, find 'config'=>array and add this line to the array : 'allow_templates_to_overwrite_views'=>1
*In /{your_template}/config.xml, set "overwrite_question_views" to true
*Copy application/views/survey/* to template/{your_view_directory}/survey/
*Note that you only need to copy the files that you intend to modify but the file structure must remain the same as in application/views/survey/

=Insert Custom CSS or JavaScript files for plugins (version 2.5)= 

As of version 2.5, you can use the config.xml file to automatically load plugin files.

*Upload your files to the template /css or /scripts folder
*In /{your_template}/config.xml, add the file paths to the <css> or <js> blocks, something like this:<syntaxhighlight lang="xml" enclose="div"><css>
<filename>css/jquery-ui-custom.css</filename>
<filename>css/bootstrap-slider.css</filename>

<filename>css/awesome-bootstrap-checkbox/awesome-bootstrap-checkbox.css</filename>
<filename>css/flat_and_modern.css</filename>

<filename>css/template.css</filename>

<filename>css/myCustomPlugin.css</filename>
</css>
<js>
<filename>scripts/template.js</filename>
<filename>scripts/bootstrap-slider.js</filename>

<filename>scripts/myCustomPlugin.js</filename>
</js>
</syntaxhighlight>

</translate>

LimeSurvey Manual

2015-07-31T06:09:36Z

Adamzammit: added queXML PDF export

<languages />
<translate>

=General= 


<div style="clear:right;float:right;"><div class="simplebox">
Main Chapters:
*[[Installation]]
*[[Administering LimeSurvey]]
*[[Getting Started]]
*[[Creating surveys - Introduction]]
*[[Managing Surveys]]
*[[Not Categorized and Advanced Features]]
*[[General FAQ]]
*[[LimeSurvey Glossary]]
*[[How to design a good survey (guide)]]
*[[Workarounds]]
*[[License]]
*[[Version change log]]
*[[Plugins]]
</div></div>


[http://www.limesurvey.com/ LimeSurvey] allows users to quickly create intuitive, powerful, online question-and-answer surveys that can work for tens to thousands of participants without much effort. The survey software itself is self-guiding for the respondents who are participating. This manual is thus focused at how to install the application, administer the installation, and support survey creators, administrators and report generation users alike.


There has been a big ramp-up in development the last few years leading to many new features and changes. Make sure to upgrade to the latest version to make use of the capabilities highlighted here.


Look to the far right for the main chapters of the manual. Otherwise, scroll down further to see the complete table of contents here and go directly to the topic you are interested in.


Still having trouble finding what you want? Don't forget the general '''search box''', our [[General FAQ]] and [[Workarounds]] list, and to look in our [http://www.limesurvey.org/en/forum/ discussion forums].


Remember that [http://www.limesurvey.org/ LimeSurvey] is an open-source, free software application. See something missing or incorrect? Then help us fix it. This documentation is a Wiki that can be edited by you or anyone else. Or [http://donate.limesurvey.org donate] to help support the core development group trying to make a difference.

= Manual - Table of contents= 


*[[Installation]]
**[[Optional settings]]
**[[Upgrading from a previous version]]
***[[ComfortUpdate]]
***[[Upgrade hints for version 1.92]]
**[[Installation using a command line interface (CLI)]]
**[[Transferring an installation]]
**[[Installation FAQ]]
**[[Installation security hints]]
*[[Administering LimeSurvey]]
**[[Global settings]]
**[[Manage users]]
**[[Manage user groups]]
**[[Label sets]]
**[[The template editor]]
**[[Localisation]]
**[[Survey Status Screen]]
**[[Central participants database]]
*[[Getting Started]]
**[[First login - Your user preferences]]
*[[Creating surveys - Introduction]]
**[[Survey settings]]
***[[Importing a survey structure]]
***[[Survey security settings]]
**[[Creating a question group]]
***[[Change group order]]
**[[Adding a question]]
***[[Question types]]
****[[Question type - Array]]
****[[Question type - Array by column]]
****[[Question type - Array dual scale]]
****[[Question type - Array (5 point choice)]]
****[[Question type - Array (10 point choice)]]
****[[Question type - Array (Increase-Same-Decrease)]]
****[[Question type - Array (Numbers)]]
****[[Question type - Array (Texts)]]
****[[Question type - Array (Yes-No-Uncertain)]]
****[[Question type - Date]]
****[[Question type - Equation]]
****[[Question type - File upload]]
****[[Question type - Gender]]
****[[Question type - Language switch]]
****[[Question type - Numerical input]]
****[[Question type - Multiple numerical input]]
****[[Question type - Ranking]]
****[[Question type - Text display]]
****[[Question type - Yes-No]]
****[[Question type - Multiple choice]]
****[[Question type - Multiple choice with comments]]
****[[Question type - 5 point choice]]
****[[Question type - List (Dropdown)]]
****[[Question type - List (Radio)]]
****[[Question type - List with comment]]
****[[Question type - Short free text]]
****[[Question type - Long free text]]
****[[Question type - Huge free text]]
****[[Question type - Multiple short text]]
***[[Change question order]]
***[[Question preview]]
***[[Adding answers or subquestions]]
**[[Setting conditions]]
***[[Expression Manager]]
****[[Expression Manager for developers]]
****[[Expression Manager HowTos]]
****[[Expression Manager Roadmap]]
****[[Expression Manager Examples]]
****[[Expression Manager Sample Surveys]]
***[[Show Logic File]]
**[[Assessments]]
**[[Quotas]]
**[[Email templates]]
*[[Managing Surveys]]
**[[Testing a survey]]
**[[Validate Survey Logic]]
**[[Activating a survey]]
**[[Running a survey safely]]
**[[Browsing survey results]]
**[[Closing a survey]]
**[[Changing an active survey]]
**[[Tokens]]
***[[Email bounce tracking system]]
**[[Iterate Survey]]
**[[Data entry]]
**[[Statistics]]
**[[Exporting results]]
**[[Exporting a survey structure]]
***[[Excel Survey Structure]]
**[[QueXML PDF Export]]
**[[Quick-translation]]
*[[Not Categorized and Advanced Features]]
**[[SGQA identifier]]
**[[Using regular expressions]]
**[[URL fields]]
**[[RemoteControl 2 API]]
*[[General FAQ]]
*[[Troubleshooting]]
*[[LimeSurvey Glossary]]
*[[How to design a good survey (guide)]]
*[[Workarounds]]
**[[Workarounds: Question design, layout and templating]]
**[[Workarounds: Manipulating a survey at runtime using Javascript]]
**[[Workarounds: Survey behaviour]]
**[[Workarounds: Further solutions provided by LimeSurvey users]]
*[[License]]
*[[Version change log]]
*[[Plugins]]
**[[Authentication plugins]]
**[[Available third party plugins]]

=LimeSurvey development= 
*[[Development overview]] - General pages about LimeSurvey development
*[[LimeSurvey 1.x development documentation]]
*[[LimeSurvey 2.x development documentation]]

=Translating LimeSurvey= 


If you want to '''add new translations''' or '''correct a translation''' please follow these instructions:
*[[Translating LimeSurvey|How to translate LimeSurvey 1.x/2.x]]

==Semester of Code participation== 
*[[Semester of Code 2014]]

=Google Summer of Code / Code-In participation= 
*[[Project ideas for GSoC 2015]]
*[[Project Ideas for GSoC 2013]]
*[[LimeSurvey Google Code-in 2012]]
*[[LimeSurvey Google Code-in 2011]]
*[[LimeSurvey GSoC 2011]]/[[GSoC getting started]]
*[[LimeSurvey GSoC 2010]]
*[[LimeSurvey GSoC 2009]]

</translate>

QueXML PDF Export

2015-07-31T06:07:04Z

Adamzammit: queXML PDF Export documentation

== queXML PDF Export ==

The queXML PDF Export function allows for the export of the current survey in to a structured PDF file that is suitable for being processed using Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) software such as [http://quexf.sourceforge.net queXF].

Included in the exported ZIP file is the survey in PDF form, a banding XML file (this describes the location of fields on the paper form), a style XML file (describes the settings used to produce the PDF file), and a [http://quexml.sourceforge.net queXML] file (a structured description of the questionnaire structure - this can also be exported separately using the [[Exporting_a_survey_structure|LimeSurvey export structure function]])

The settings presented on this page are the defaults of the queXML PDF export software. These can be altered to produce a different looking paper questionnaire.

;Language selection
:If the survey has been translated into multiple languages - you can choose the language for export here

;Style
:Apply styling to elements on the paper form using CSS

;Allow array style questions to be split over multiple pages
:If you have arrays with many subquestions in your survey, this will allow for the array to be split over multiple pages. This avoids having pages with very long questions or too much white space on a page. An arrow will appear at the bottom of the page to indicate the question continues on the next page.

;Allow single choice questions to be split over multiple pages
:Single choice questions such as "radio" style questions can be allowed to split over multiple pages. Useful if you have questions with a long list of possible responses. An arrow will appear at the bottom of the page to indicate the question continues on the next page.

;Allow multiple short text / numeric questions to be split over multiple pages
:Where multiple short text or multiple numeric question types are used - allow for their sub questions to appear split over multiple pages (an arrow will appear at the bottom of the page to indicate the question continues on the next page).

;Allow slider questions to be split over multiple pages
:Slider questions present as Visual Analog Scale (VAS) items in queXML PDF pages. This will allow for a list of sliders to be split over multiple pages. An arrow will appear at the bottom of the page to indicate the question continues on the next page.

;Minimum height of single choice answer boxes
:This sets the minimum height in millimetres of each response item to a single choice (e.g. radio) question. Set this value lower to fit more questions on a page.

;Minimum height of subquestion items
:The minimum height in millimetres of sub questions in an array style question. Set this value lower to fit more sub question items in an array style question. Please be wary that setting this too low may cut the end from long sub question text items.

;Margin before questionnaireInfo element (mm)
:The questionnaireInfo element is the "Welcome" text or "End text" of the survey. This setting sets the margin in millimetres before the text is displayed.

;Answer option / subquestion font size
:The font size in points of answer options or sub question text

;Answer label font size (normal)
:The font size in points of answer labels when displayed in sub questions.

;Answer label font size (small)
:The font size in points of answer labels when displayed in sub questions where long words are used that cannot fit in the area provided without being split.

;Minimum section height (mm)
:Each group in a LimeSurvey survey appears as a new section in the queXML PDF document. This setting sets the minimum height in millimetres of the heading for the new section.

;Background colour for sections (0 black - 255 white)
:The amount of greyness behind a section heading

;Background colour for questions (0 black - 255 white)
:The amount of greyness behind questions. Good form design suggests having a light grey background to avoid eye strain and to make the areas for responses clearly defined (the areas for responses are always white)

;Page orientation
:Portrait or landscape orientation for the paper questionnaire

;Page format
:The size of the paper to use (A4, A3, US Letter)

;Edge detection format
:What style of edges to include on the page to allow for alignment when scanned. Choice of boxes or lines.

Clicking on the "queXML PDF export" button will generate a ZIP archive containing the PDF questionnaire and associated files.

If you have changed the settings above and wish to reset them back to the default queXML PDF settings - click on the "Reset to default settings" button.