Short description

This question type is a variation on the "Short Text" question type which allows more than one text entry per question. The user first defines the question and can then add additional text boxes by adding 'Answers'. Each answer becomes the label of the new text box.

Example: Multiple_short_text_example.zip

General options

Mandatory

Description

This option allows the survey administrators to request their respondents to answer certain survey questions. If the mandatory questions are not answered, the respondents will not be able to proceed further. If you have a question with multiple subquestions, and you require only certain subquestions to be answered, use the minimum answer attribute located under the Logic tab.

If you use any of the preinstalled themes and the mandatory question attribute is enabled, a red asterisk will be shown next to the question. If you wish to hide it, please check these instructions.

Available options

On - Question must be answered before the participant can proceed to the next page - the answer option 'No answer' is never shown.
Soft - If the question is not answered, a warning is shown when trying to proceed to the next page - however, the participant can choose to ignore the warning and proceed. Note that the 'No answer' option is still shown (if activated in survey presentation settings)
Off (default) - Question can be left unanswered

Condition (previously "Relevance equation")

Description

If the result value of the condition is "1" or "true", the question is "relevant" in the survey context, i.e. it is shown to the survey participant. If not, the question is hidden. Any survey question allows you to specify a relevance equation. This function is the successor of conditions and supports much more complex conditional logic.

Syntax Highlighting

Whenever you save the condition, it is evaluated and syntax-highlighted. Any errors will be color coded so that you can quickly detect and fix them.

Hint: To check if all conditions are used correctly within your survey, read about our show logic file feature.

Valid values

Any condition that makes use of the ExpressionScript syntax, without surrounding curly braces.

Examples

Here are good examples of syntax highlighting.

Validation (using regular expressions) (preg_validation)

Description

This option lets you specify a regular expression with which you can validate all the parts of a question.

If any question or subquestion value does not meet the validation requirements, the background colour of the text entry field will be changed to red so that users can easily see which parts of the question need to be corrected. Thus, you can do on-page validation. In this way you will not need to wait for the user to click on the submit button to validate the respective question.

Valid values

Any valid regular expression

Example

Click here to check multiple examples.

Display

Prefix (prefix)

Description

A text value to be shown as prefix before the text input box(es). The prefix is shown just left of the input.

If the screen is small, then the prefix will be displayed above the input. If you want to leave it on the left^{(New in 3.0.0 )} : add suffix-prefix-force class to the question.

Valid values

Any character or set of characters you wish to be displayed before the input

Example

Entering a value of "$" for this attribute would result in a dollar sign being displayed immediately preceding the text input box.

Suffix (suffix)

Description

A text value to be suffixed to a text entry box. The sufix is shown just right of the input.

On little screen : sufix is shown below the input. If you want to leave it at right^{(New in 3.0.0 )} : add suffix-prefix-force class to the question.

Valid values

Any character or set of characters you wish to be displayed after the input

Example

Entering a value of "%" for this attribute would result in a percentage sign being displayed immediately after the text input box.

Input box width (text_input_width)

Description

This attribute sets the width of the text input boxes (of the "wrapper" of the text input boxes). The input box is used to introduce an answer to the (sub)question. If the value of the width is sufficiently high, then the text input box will be displayed on the next line. Please note that this option does not set the size of the input or the width of the entire column!

Available options

Default: If selected, a default value will be allocated to this attribute in such a way to have both the label and its corresponding text input box on the same line. For example, if the text input box width is 41%, the value of the width of the text input box will be a value that allows both the label and the input box on the same line (58% in this case). If the width of text input box was higher than 58%, then the text input box would be displayed on the next line.
8%; 17%...92%, 100%: the bigger the selected value, the larger the width of the text input box.

Example

If you wish to have the input part displayed below the subquestion/label, select the 100% option from the dropdown list.

Label column width (label_column_width)

Description

The label column width option allows you to set the width of the label/subquestion (of the wrapper of each label). Please note that this option does not set the width of the column where the labels are located.

Available options

Default: If selected, a default value will be allocated to have both the label and its corresponding text input box on the same line. For example, if the text input box width is 92% and the label column width is set to default, the label and its corresponding answer text box will be displayed on the same row. If the width of the label "wrapper" was higher than 7%, then the text input box would be displayed on the next line.
Hidden: If chosen, the first column (that contains subquestions) will not be displayed to the survey respondent.
8%; 17% ... 92%; 100%: the bigger the selected value, the larger the width of the subquestion.

Example: If you wish to have each subquestion displayed on its own row, increase the width to 100%, the text input box being then displayed under each subquestion.

Question theme (question_theme)

Description

It allows you to use customized themes for the respective question.

Available options

Your created question themes which are located under the Question themes in the Themes panel.

See: Question themes

Note: This feature is under development at the moment.

Hide tip (hide_tip)

Description

Most questions will usually include a tip that says "Please choose one of the following options" or a hint text on how to fill out the question. This attribute allows you to turn off or on this tips/hints.

These tips/hints include validation criteria messages (such as min/max number of answers, min/max/equals sum value). If hide_tip is enabled, these messages will be hidden. However, if the user enters invalid data, the tips will appear. They will be coloured in red, getting changed to green once the validation criteria are met.

Available options

On - the tips/hints are hidden;
Off (default).

Display rows (display_rows)

Description

It sets the number of rows that are displayed without making use of the scroll bar to check all the content. If there are more rows than the number mentioned in this field, then a scroll bar will be displayed. The default value for the "Long free text" question type is 5, while for the "Huge free text question type" is 30.

Valid values

Any positive integer number greater than 0

Random answer order (random_order)

Description

Deprecated for Answer Options : As of 5.5.0, this attribute is not longer used for ordering answer options. Please see QS:Answer_order

This attribute causes LimeSurvey to ignore the existing order of answer options/subquestions, and instead it orders them randomly. This option permits the survey creator to diminish the survey bias. Please note that if a question has subquestions, the order of subquestions will be randomized, not the order of the answer options.

Available options

Yes - Randomize when participant enters survey
No (default)

Text input box size (input_box_size)

Hint: This features is available starting in version 3.0.0

Description

This function allows you to set the size of the text area (the text input box). By default, LimeSurvey forces the input box to be displayed with a default size. This can be overridden by making use of this function.

To move the box on the next line, you need to increase the size of the wrapper. To do so, increase the value of the text input width attribute.

Valid values

Any numeric value

Always hide this question (hidden)

Description

If enabled, the question will always be hidden - it will not be displayed to the survey participants. This function can be used in the following scenarios:

If you wish to prefill a question with a URL and you want not to have it displayed on the screen. This overrides any conditions used within the survey because the respective question will not even be embedded on the page.
If you wish to store or calculate a value on the fly via the ExpressionScript - Presentation.

Note: A common question type that is used with this function is the Equation one.

Available options

On
Off (default)

CSS class (css_class)

Description

If you want to add special CSS classes to certain questions, you can enter the CSS class name(s) in this box. Make sure you leave an empty space between different class names.

Valid values

Any text string with a space between different CSS class names.

Hint: You can also insert an expression in this box^{(New in 3.0.0 )}. Remember that the output of the expression will not be updated dynamically.

According to the W3C, CSS class names can contain only the characters [a-zA-Z, and 0-9] and ISO 10646 characters U+00A1 and higher, plus the hyphen (-) and the underscore (_). They cannot start with a digit, or a hyphen followed by a digit. LimeSurvey encodes CSS classes, but it does not fix it totally.

Input

Maximum characters (maximum_chars)

Description

This allows you to set the maximum number of characters that can be entered for a text based question. Entering a value of, say, 20 will mean that the participant cannot enter any more than 20 characters.

Valid values

Any integer value above 0

Logic

Minimum answers (min_answers)

Description

This function can be used to ensure that a user selects at least a certain number of answers in a multiple choice question.

Valid values

Any integer value above 0
Any number
Any SGQA code
Any question code (variable name)
Any equation, using ExpressionScript syntax, without surrounding curly braces.

Example

If set to X (a random number), the users can submit the survey form if they select at least X checkboxes. If this option is utilised for ranking questions, this ensures that at least three items are ranked before allowing the respondent to submit the answers/survey.

Please note that if you use this attribute with Ranking questions, you have to set the question to non-mandatory. Otherwise, all the items need to be ranked which is counter-intuitive if you decide to use the min_answers function too.

Maximum answers (max_answers)

Description

It can be used to limit the total number of answers a user can select in a multiple choice question.

Valid values

Any number value
Any SGQA code
Any question code (variable name)
Any equation, using ExpressionScript syntax, without surrounding curly braces.

Example

If set to 2, the user will only be able to check at most two checkboxes or one checkbox + fill the "Other" field (if any). For the Ranking question type, the participant would be able to select maximum two items.

Array exclusion filter (array_filter_exclude)

Description

The Array filter exclusion setting allows you to use any multiple choice question to select or set which responses are NOT displayed in a subsequent list, array or multiple choice question.

The subsequent questions can be filtered on any array question type, including:

Multiple choice
Multiple choice with comments
Multiple short text
Multiple numeric
Array (5 point, 10 point, Yes/No/Unknown, Increase/Same/Decrease, By column)
Array (Dual Scale, Text, Numbers)
Ranking

Furthermore, each of these types of questions can filtered.

The only exception is Array by column which can filter other questions, but it cannot be filtered.

How to set it up

Enter the question code of a multiple options question in the array exclusion filter box of the question you are currently editing. The respective question will be used as the source of information for the current question, the non-selected answers from the previous question being retrieved and used as answer options for the current question. For example, if your source multiple option question code is "Q1", enter "Q1" into the 'Array exclusion filter' box to start the filtering process of the answers. Only the answer options that are NOT selected in question Q1 will be visible in your question.

If you wish more questions to be filtered via this option, type the question codes in the box separated by semicolons (;).

The subquestion codes used in the first question must coincide with the subquestion codes from the second one. Otherwise, the array exclusion filter function will not filter the answers to the first question. Check the below example to better understand how the whole system works.

Cascading

The selected options can be displayed in cascade. This means that you can select a question which filters another question, which filters another question, and so on.

Example

Let's see together the below example:

In the screenshot from above, we got two questions. The first one is a multiple choice question type, while the second one is a multiple choice with comments question type. The answers you provide in the first question will be excluded from the second one. For example, if you select the ComfortUpdate option (that has the subquestion code 'SQ1') and the Plugin option ('SQ4'), the 'SQ1' and the 'SQ4' subquestion correspondents from the second question will be excluded. In our screenshot, we can observe that only the unselected options in the first question and displayed in the second one.

This example can be downloaded from the following link: Limesurvey_group_array_filter_exclude.zip. Import this question group into your LimeSurvey installation.

Array filter style (array_filter_style)

Description

This function allows you to choose how the array filtered subquestions are displayed. They can either be "hidden" or "disabled".

To learn how to filter subquestions, please read the following wiki section.

Available options

Hidden (default) - if this option is selected, then the previously selected subquestions will not be displayed in the second question.
Disabled - if this option is selected, then the previously selected subquestions will be greyed out and become unselectable.

Example

If you wish to use the "disabled" option, then the previously selected subquestions will be displayed like this:

Array filter (array_filter)

Description

The Array filter setting allows you to use any multiple choice question to select or set which responses are displayed in a subsequent list, array or multiple choice question.

The subsequent questions can be filtered on any array question type, including:

Multiple choice
Multiple choice with comments
Multiple short text
Multiple numeric
Array (5 point, 10 point, Yes/No/Unknown, Increase/Same/Decrease, Column)
Array (Dual Scale, Text, Numbers)
Ranking

Furthermore, each of these question types can be filtered.

The only exception is Array (Column), which can filter other questions, but not itself.

How to set a filter

To set a filter, enter the question code of a multiple options question in the array filter box of the question you are currently editing. The respective question will be used as the source of information for the current question, the selected answers from the previous question being retrieved and used as answer options for the current question. For example, if your source multiple option question code is "Q1", enter "Q1" into the 'Array Filter' box to start the filtering process of the answers. Only the answer options that are selected in question Q1 will be visible in the array_filter-ed question.

If you wish more questions to be filtered via this option, type the question codes in the box separated by semicolons (;).

The subquestion codes used in the first question must coincide with the subquestion codes from the second one. Otherwise, the array filter function will not filter the answers to the first question. Note: When you want to filter the "other" answer option from the first question, you need to provide a subquestion for this answer in the second question and the subquestion code for this answer needs to be "other". Check the below example to better understand how the whole system works.

If multiple choice allow other setting: you can choose other for subquestion code and filter with other checked or not.

Cascading

The selected options can be displayed in cascade. This means that you can select a question which filters another question, which filters another question, and so on.

Array filter example

Let's take a look at the following example to better understand the power of this setting:

In the screenshot from above, we got two questions. The first one is a multiple short text question type, while the second one is an array dual scale question type. The answers you provide in the first question will be listed in the second one. Technically, the answers you provide to the subquestions from the first question are filtered and displayed in the second question.

This example can be downloaded from the following link: limesurvey_group_32.lsg. Import this question group into your LimeSurvey installation.

Exclusive option (exclusive_option)

Description

The exclusive option attribute takes the code of an answer in a multiple option question so that when clicked on its corresponding checkbox, all the other previously checked options will get unchecked and get marked as read-only (=disabled). This function was created to ensure the data integrity when one of the multiple options in a multiple option question implies that no other option can be selected too. Basically, this feature marks the other attributes as being irrelevant.

It is also possible to have multiple exclusive options. These must be separated by semicolons.

Example

For a short explanation on answer codes, check first the following wiki section. Once understood, introduce the "AnswerCode" that will trigger the function once selected.

Below, you may see an example where the exclusive option attribute is used.

You can see in the first screenshot that some non-LimeSurvey options are selected:

If you click on the marked option (which is entered in the exclusive option box), the other options will get unmarked and disabled, being left only with the current option checked:

To take a closer look at our example, import the .lsq file into your LimeSurvey installation:

File:Example exclusive option question.zip.

Randomization group name (random_group)

Description

It places the questions into a specified randomization group, all questions included in the specified group being displayed in a random order to the survey respondents.

You can find a sample survey using randomization group name in ExpressionScript sample survey.

Valid values

Just enter any string you like (for example: 'group1'). All question which have set the same string within the randomization group name box will have their place in the survey randomized (=randomly exchanged among each other).

Preview To preview the questions use the preview survey instead of the preview question group function, as the second has been reported to not show the questions in a randomized order.

Question validation equation (em_validation_q)

Description

This is an equation that is used to validate the entire question (e.g, all of its parts collectively for a multi-answer question). If the question fails the validation criteria, then em_validation_q_tip message will be displayed (it uses the CSS style .error). This tip uses the .em_q_fn_validation CSS style, which is hidden by default within template.css.

The main difference between this feature and the subquestion validation equations (em_validation_sq option) is that for this feature, if the question (or question parts) fail validation, then an error message could be shown. For the subquestion validation, each text entry cell (e.g., in an array question type, but it can also be applied to single entry question types) will be styled so that the background color is (light) red.

Valid values

Any equation that makes use of the ExpressionScript syntax, without surrounding curly braces.

Example

You want to collect demographic information from users via a multiple short text question, and you want to validate that the user has entered a valid email address and phone number.

This example shows how the question looks with invalid answers:

And here is what it looks like with one invalid answer:

Here is how you edit a question to enter that information:

And here is part of the Show Logic File output that lets you check the accuracy of your expression and ensure that there are no syntax errors:

As you can see, the validation equation tests that both the email and phone number are either empty or match a regular expression filter.

The validation tip only shows the warning message if the phone or email appears invalid.

Hint: In order to create complex validation messages, read about the usage of the ExpressionScript.

If you wish to import the example from above into your LimeSurvey installation, download the following .lsq file: Em_validation_q_example.zip.

Hint: Remember, LimeSuvey uses the Perl syntax for regular expressions, so they should start and end with / (slash character)!

Tip for whole question validation equation (em_validation_q_tip)

Description

If you are using the question validation equation, you can use this box in order to display an optional message as question tip on how the question has to be filled out.

Valid values

Any string or equation that makes use of the ExpressionScript syntax.

Example

See the example from the question validation equation wiki section- it shows how the tip can be tailored to show which parts of a multiple short text question fail the validation criteria.

Sub-question validation equation (em_validation_sq)

Description

This is an equation that is used to validate each subquestion (text field) individually. Any text field that does not pass these validation conditions will have its background color turned pink (using the .em_sq_fn_validation CSS style) to highlight the error. Note that this is available in addition to the regular expression-based validation option.

Valid values

Any equation that makes use of the ExpressionScript syntax, without surrounding curly braces.

Examples

For example, if you want to allow only numbers that are a multiple of 3 as answers, the equation would be:

(this / 3) == floor(this/3)

The reserved variable this is automatically replaced by a reference to the active text entry cell.

Tip for sub-question validation equation (em_validation_sq_tip)

Description

If you are using em_validation_sq, this is an optional message/tip that will be displayed if the introduced answer is incorrect.

Valid values

Any string

Example

Continuing the example of validating emails, the tip might be "Please enter valid email addresses."

Other

Numbers only (numbers_only)

Description

If you enable this option, the participant can only enter numbers in the text box(es).

For the equation question types, this setting indicates that the result could only be a number, not a string. This will guarantee proper calculations/conversions in follow-up equations regarding the decimal mark.

Behavior by question type

Default: If the subject enters a value that is not a number, that value is immediately cleared from the text box so that the subject can enter an appropriate value.
Array (Texts): If the numbers only option is disabled, the "Show totals for" and "Show grand total" options will be overruled, while the total text boxes will not be displayed.
Equation: Enabling this option will force the equation results to be converted to a numeric value. If the equation result is not a number (and not blank), the equation will return NaN, being saved as an empty string in the response table.

Available options

On
Off (default)

Insert page break in printable view (page_break)

Description

This attribute is only active when you actually print a survey from the Printable View. It forces a page break before the question.

Available options

On
Off (default)

Statistics

Display chart (display_chart)

Description

This attribute allows the survey administrator to choose if a chart that contains the question results should be displayed to the survey participants after they filled out the survey.

Note: To have the chart displayed on the last page, you have to enable the following options:

public statistics survey setting from the presentation & navigation settings
show graphs survey setting from the presentation & navigation settings
public statistics question attribute, and
display chart question attribute.

Available options

On
Off (default)

Chart type (chart_type)

Description

This attribute allows the survey administrator to choose which type of chart will be displayed to the respondent once he/she finished filling out the survey.

Note: Do not forget to change the question and survey settings in order to have the charts displayed at the end on the survey. For more details, check the wiki section on the display chart question attribute.

Available options

Bar chart
Pie chart
Radar
Line
PolarArea
Doughnut

Question type - Multiple short text

From LimeSurvey Manual

Contents

Short description

General options

Mandatory

Condition (previously "Relevance equation")

Validation (using regular expressions) (preg_validation)

Display

Prefix (prefix)

Suffix (suffix)

Input box width (text_input_width)

Label column width (label_column_width)

Question theme (question_theme)

Hide tip (hide_tip)

Display rows (display_rows)

Random answer order (random_order)

Text input box size (input_box_size)

Always hide this question (hidden)

CSS class (css_class)

Input

Maximum characters (maximum_chars)

Logic

Minimum answers (min_answers)

Maximum answers (max_answers)

Array exclusion filter (array_filter_exclude)

Array filter style (array_filter_style)

Array filter (array_filter)

Exclusive option (exclusive_option)

Randomization group name (random_group)

Question validation equation (em_validation_q)

Tip for whole question validation equation (em_validation_q_tip)

Sub-question validation equation (em_validation_sq)

Tip for sub-question validation equation (em_validation_sq_tip)

Other

Numbers only (numbers_only)

Insert page break in printable view (page_break)

Statistics

Display chart (display_chart)

Chart type (chart_type)