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The Knowledgebase

Study Abroad: HTML in Terra Dotta

Terra Dotta has a great deal of flexibility for the content management of your site, but there are many locations where the formatting has been fixed into a specific font and style and does not allow for the addition of hyperlinks. This was done for reasons of database consistency and predictable formatting styles that render in all browsers properly.

However, you may find in the course of using the software that you wish to change these standard formatting restrictions.  While it does not natively provide any support for such formatting changes, this can be done by including HTML tags within the input fields.  By using HTML tags in this manner, you can change the font and format of the output as well as include hyperlinks to other web pages and document center objects.

This article will discuss the following topics: 

 
Important Note: This is not considered to be standard use of these features and any attempts to make these changes should be extensively tested by your office to ensure that they are working as expected.  It is recommended to use the information within this document sparingly and only when absolutely necessary as this use of the site's input fields is not fully supported and cannot be guaranteed to remain functional with future updates to the software.


Where can I embed HTML tags?

  • Question item instructions
  • Questionnaire instructions
  • Program names
  • Program parameter names
  • Program application instructions
  • Application Instructions

In most places where Terra Dotta allows text to be entered into a field, it is possible to include HTML tags which will affect how that output is displayed in a web browser.  For example, it is possible to include HTML tags within the 'Instructions' for a question item which will be rendered according to the HTML instructions when it is displayed to applicants or recommenders in a questionnaire. 

 

What can I do when I embed HTML tags?

There are three primary functions that can be performed using HTML tags:

Font / formatting 
This refers to ability to change the font of the text, the color of the text, and /or the size of the text. It also refers to being able to make text underlined, italicized, or in bold type. 

URL links 
This refers to having a hyperlink appear in the text which opens a new browser window pointing to a specific URL. This can be a page of your web site or an external web site page 

Document center objects 
This refers to having a hyperlink appear in the text which is linked to a document in your document center.  When the user clicks on this link, the linked document will be sent to the user. 
 
You may think of other uses for HTML tags within these fields.  However, one important aspect of this involves remembering that most text fields are limited by a certain number of characters.  Each character in the HTML tag is considered a character in this field.  With this limitation on length, extensive use of HTML tags might not be possible, and it is best to keep any modifications of this nature minor and short.

How do you embed HTML tags in plain text fields?

Adding hyperlinks to questionnaire instructions
A questionnaire has a set of instructions that are displayed at the top of the questionnaire when it is filled out. These instructions are typed into the system by a staff member on the questionnaire's edit page. 
The field for 'questionnaire instructions' can have a hyperlink embedded in them by using the following HTML formatting: 
<a href="URL of the web-page" target="_blank" title="tooltip to be displayed upon mouseover">text to be displayed as the link</a>
 
This will create a hyperlink that opens a new browser window and displays the web page referenced in the 'href' property. 
 
Example:
<a href="index.cfm?FuseAction=Abroad.ViewLink&Link_ID=ABFD68CC-DA72-B9B4-FB41913ACF18B79A" target="_blank" title="Advising Page">Click here</a> 

Adding font and formatting tags to a program name and application instructions 
A program name can be given HTML formatting instructions to make it stand out when it is listed in the program search results.  The most common way to do this is to make the font appear in bold letters.
To do this, include the <B> tag before the beginning of the text to be in bold and the tag </B> at the end of the text which is to appear in bold. 
 
Note: It is important to have the </B> tag included.  If it was not there, ALL the text on the page after the program name Paris Exchange would appear in bold.  This is known as 'closing' your tags. 
 
The same principle can be used to make program names appear in italics by using <I> and </I>. 
 
You can also add in tags that will change the font of that is used to display the program name. 
 
Example: 
<FONT FACE="arial">Paris Exchange</FONT>
 
This will make the text 'Paris Exchange' appear in the Arial font when displayed.  It is important to realize, however, this HTML tag is considered to be a 'depreciated' tag and might not be supported in future browsers. 
 
Another tag that can be applied effects the size of the text.  You can use heading tags to make text appear larger.
<H2>Paris Exchange</H2>
 
This makes the Paris Exchange text appear at the "Heading 2" size which may differ from site to site depending on the style sheet which your site's layout is using.
 
It is always important to remember that when adjustments are made to the formatting of these fields, you should test them out immediately with at least two different web browsers to make sure that they aren't causing display issues on your pages. 
 
Another important thing to note when adjusting program names: As far as Terra Dotta is concerned, your program is named what you type into that field. It considers the HTML tags a part of the name even though it doesn't display them in that manner on the web pages. This means that when presenting your program names in alphabetical order, these programs with HTML tags will always appear at the top. Terra Dotta considers them to all start with '<' as the first letter. This may or may not be a desired behavior.

When HTML tags are used in the names of programs to effect the display of those program names in the search listings, it will result in some displays showing the HTML code rather than effecting the styling of the program name. These displays are only seen on the administrative side and is expected behavior.
 
These administrative displays include:
  • The title of the browser windows when viewing applications
  • Excel exports that include the program name
  • Printed output page titles
 
It is also possible that the HTML tags will not always be rendered out in the desired formatting. When running an Excel export of the applications, the HTML tags will appear in their raw form under the 'Program Name' column. 
 
>> Whenever adding these tags to your system, please make sure that it will not be adversely affecting your process in other locations due to the added information in the names. <<
 
Anything described above for text formatting can be applied in almost any other location where a text field is used.

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Finally, HTML can be used in text interface fields, though doing so is not considered a supported use of the software and should be tested thoroughly in a test environment before being used on your live site.