You can use this tab to optionally change the way that your text or data collected from a database is displayed. It doesn't have to be a database. If you are collecting text from a text file that another computer system has outputted, then you can use this to alter the way the information is displayed. The different format options are:
TEXT
You are telling Repeat Signage that this data is text. This gives you the following additional options for formatting as text. For example, the text:
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
would be displayed as follows with these options:
| UPPER CASE | THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG |
| LOWER CASE | the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog |
| SENTENCE CASE | The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog |
| UPPER FIRST LETTERS | The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog |
The SENTENCE CASE makes the first letter of each sentence a capital letter.
You can also add a prefix and/or suffix to text and any of the other data types by selecting the 'Additional' tab on this page.
NUMBER, PERCENT, or CURRENCY
These options tell Repeat Signage that your data is a number, which allows you then to choose how a number is displayed.
Decimal places - This is the amount of digits displayed after the decimal point. For example, a number of 23 is displayed differently depending on the number of decimal places specified:
| 23 | 0 decimal places |
| 23.0 | 1 decimal place |
| 23.00 | 2 decimal places |
Leading zeros - This is the minimum number of digits you want to display as number as. For example, bank account numbers are often 8 digits long such as 97327734. A bank account number of 633000 (6 digits) would be displayed as 00633000 for consistency. So when you format a number like this you need to specify 8 leading zeros which will make sure the final number gets padded with extra zeros at the front of the number if required. Leading zeros are only added if needed. Another example with 23:
| 23 | 0 leading zeros |
| 23 | 1 leading zero |
| 23 | 2 leading zeros |
| 023 | 3 leading zeros |
| 0023 | 4 leading zeros |
Currency symbol - Either select an entry from the list such as $, £, €, or ￥, or type you own one. So selecting the dollar symbol with 1234.00, for example would be displayed as $1234.00. If you wanted to display 1234 like '1234USD' then use the suffix box on the Additional tab on this page instead and specify a suffix as 'USD'.
Thousands separator - Displays longer numbers such as 1234567, with separators to give 1,234,67 instead, which makes reading them easier.
Manually type a format code - This tick box is for advanced users so that you can enter a custom format code. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dwhawy9k(v=vs.90).aspx. Please feel free to contact us if you need any help
Percent - If you select 'Percent' then numbers are converted to percentages. For example, 0.25 would be displayed as 25%. You have all the other number options available as well.
DATE/TIME
This option is telling Repeat Signage that the information is either a date, a time, or a date and time combined. It formats text such as '12/12/2014' as a date, '12:54', etc, as a time, etc. However, if you text is not a date such as 'Hello' then no formatting will be applied and your text will just be displayed as is.
Select date/time format - You can pick 'TIME', 'DATE', etc, from the list and see how the current date/time previews. This puts a code such as 'dd MMMM yyyy' in the 'Date/time format box'. This then formats the date or time based on this code. These are programming codes which determine how the current date or time is displayed. These codes are complex but we have left this open to allow maximum flexibility. To format a code other than one of the standard ones, it is easiest to click on each of the types in turn, such as 'TIME', 'DATE', 'DATE IN WORDS', etc and look at the codes needed to display in a format you need common codes that you may need are:
| Code | Description |
| HH | Hour number such as 08 |
| mm | Minutes number such as 45 |
| ss | Seconds number such as 23 |
| dd | Day number such as 30 |
| dddd | Day name such as Tuesday |
| MM | Month number such as 01 |
| MMMM | Month name such as January |
| yyyy | Year number such as 2010 |
You can also use separates such as '/' or ':' characters, commas (,) and spaces to display a date or time in the format required.
A programmers reference for these codes is available at (but this isn't for the faint hearted):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx
Optional culture code - If this is left blank then it uses the computers default culture which depends on control panel settings, which is most likely to be UK or US English. This is only useful when displaying the names of days or months in non-English languages such as French, Spanish, etc.
For example, the format code (see above) for displaying the name of the month is:
MMMM
If the culture code is set to en-UK or en-US and the month is 'June' then we get:
June
If we used the Italian culture code of it-IT then we would get:
guiugno
| Code | Description |
| en-UK | English (British) |
| en-US | English (US) |
| fr-FR | French (France) |
| es-ES | Spanish (Spain) |
| es-MX | Spanish (Mexico) |
For other countries, a list of these codes is available at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee797784(CS.20).aspx
BOOLEAN
A boolean value is True or False. 'True or False' can also be 'Yes or No', 'On or Off', '1 or 0', 'Right or Wrong', etc. However, there is a third type called Null which means that neither True nor False has been selected. You can either select an option from the list or type in your own text to display on True or False.
Treat null values as false - This is ticked by default. This means that if the text is empty then it will display the text you have specified for False. However, you may want to display a different text on Null such as 'N/A', 'Unknown', or just leave it blank. Tick this box and then the 'Null display value' box is shown so that you can specify your own text