text area limits

Our referral form has been working well until recently a clinician got verbose in one of the text areas. She was cut off after two lines (on the print out side). I enlarged the text area box but it still cuts off after two lines. worse it gives no indication to the writer that their info is not being taken in.

In the Reason for Referral text area below you can see the code I used. I added the 200 character limit warning as a stopgap.

I've included labels from either side in case there's some clues there, though they are not text areas. There is another text area in the form that, on testing, behaves the same way.

Thank you.
Scott

<label>Telephone Number:
      <input name="psTelephone_Number" type="text" id="telephonenumber:" size="15" maxlength="15" />
    </label>
  </p>
  <p>
    <label>Reason For Referral(limit to 200 characters):
      <textarea name="Reason_For_Referral" id="reasonforreferral:" cols="70" rows="7"></textarea>
    </label>
  </p>                         
  <p>
    <label>Client's Support System:
      <input name="Clients_Support_System" type="text" id="clientssupport" value="" size="50" maxlength="100" />
    </label>

Hi Scott,

I can't think of any reason why a textarea would be cut off before the email is sent. It sometimes happens with a DB Save if the column is set to e.g. VARCHAR(255). I'm not aware of anything in the ChronoForms code that would crop it.

Could it be a problem with embedded quotes or some other special character?

Bob

Thank you, Bob.

I built the form using the examples in the Chronoform tutorials. I don't recall any special characters. Would it help if I post the complete code for the form.

It sometimes happens with a DB Save if the column is set to e.g. VARCHAR(255).

Where would I find this?

You may remember that for security reasons we use ChonoConnectivity to send an email notification to the administrative assistant when the form is submitted to the database. I don't see how this could affect this output but thought I'd mention it in case it does.

Hi Scott,

Please post (or PM/email) a link to the form so I can take a quick look.

Bob

At work so can only send front end look for now:
https://www.helptherapist.com/component/chronocontact/?chronoformname=referral_sheet
Thanks
Scott

Hi Scott,

I tried to take a look but the connection is timing out and I can't load the site at all.

Bob

Bob,
it was doing that last night when I was on my way to bed. Something to do with webhost I think. All well this am (San Diego time). Please try again.
Thanks,
Scott

Hi Scott,

It all looks OK to me*. Please take a Form Backup using the icon in the Forms Manager and post it here (as a zipped file) or PM or email it to me and I'll take a closer look.

Bob

PS There's a colon in the textarea id that technically isn't allowed but I can't see how that would give the cut-off problem.

Hi SCott,

Thanks for the backup - the form appears to be working OK here. Where exactly do you see the data shortened?

Bob

Hi Bob,

Thanks for you persistence.

The text area in question is "Reason for Referral". The admin assistant sees it cut off when she views it after being notified by ChrooConnectivity.

It allowed me to enter a long text string but cut it off at the same place (two displayed lines) even after I'd increased the values for lines and rows.

Scott

Hi Scott,

I'm still unclear. It sounds as though the data is being re-displayed in ChronoConenctivity so presumably it is being saved in the database first. Is the full text saved there?

Bob

Bob,

I submitted the form with text in that area. When I looked at the record from Chronoform and from Display in ChronoConnectivity it was cut off at the same point. Here's what was displayed sans quotes (I had entered much more text):

This is a test. Do not delete. I am checking to see if all the text is stored in the record. This will help us determine where the text is cut off - in the form submission process or when the form info is redisplayed when you log in to retrieve it. It may

Thank you for your perseverence.
Scott

Hi Scott,

That is exactly 255 characters long. I have to believe that it is being saved in a VARCHAR(255) column in the database. If you change the column type to TEXT then the problem should disappear.

Bob

I added type="text" in html like this:

<label>Reason For Referral(limit to 200 characters):
<textarea name="Reason_For_Referral" id="reasonforreferral:" cols="70" type="text" rows="7"></textarea>
</label>

to no effect. Is there someplace else I should do this? different command form?

Hi Scott,

This has **nothing** to do with the Form HTML. It's the column type in the database table that I think is the problem. Use the PHPMyAdmin to take a look.

Bob

Thanks, Bob. That did it.
Best,
Scott