DropDown

Functional explanation

DropDownObject presents a predefined list of items in a compact control. It is suited for mode selection, recipe selection, and other discrete choices.

The object is useful when the operator must choose one value from a known list without taking much page space. The selected item is mapped to the configured value list and can be written back to a bound variable.

Use it when the operator should choose one option from a controlled set instead of typing free text.

Object name

Set the object name shown in the dropdown decorator context.

Variable / Expression

Configure the variable or expression bound to the selected value.

Individual

Configure the item lists and open/closed appearance for the DropDown object.

Documents in a folder

Instead of a fixed item list, the object can show the documents that are present in a folder. Set Item Source to Documents in a folder and fill in Folder; the Items and Values settings are then no longer used. The object reads the folder each time the operator opens the list, shows the label chosen under Item Label, and writes the full path of the selected document to the bound variable.

Point the Document Path of a Document Viewer at that same variable and the operator selects a document and reads it on the same page. A document that was created while the page was open appears the next time the list is opened.

The folder must be listed under Document viewer access in Engineering Settings for one of the operator's user groups, the same rule that decides what the Document Viewer may show. Only the file types the Document Viewer serves are listed, and sub-folders are not included.

Pattern filters the list by file name and is also the only place a document's date comes from. The wildcards * and ? match any run of characters and a single character, so Daily_* lists by name alone. Adding date tokens states where the date sits in the name and how it is written. The tokens are the same ones the report renderer formats its output name with, so the Pattern is the format string that produced the file:

Every token is introduced by a percent sign, so all other text in the Pattern is literal exactly as typed. A folder of reports named WTP Realtime report_2026-07-28.pdf is matched by WTP Realtime report_%Y-%m-%d.pdf, with nothing special needed for the letters in the report name. Write %% where the file name holds a literal percent sign.

Case matters, and %m against %M is the easy mistake: %m is the month and %M is the minute, so Report_%d-%M-%Y.pdf would mean day, minute, year and match nothing. All tokens are fixed width and zero padded, so %m matches 08 and never 8; a folder of unpadded names is matched with ? wildcards instead and carries no date.

Use a wildcard for the parts of a name that are not needed. Report_%d-%m-%Y_%H%M%S_*.pdf reads 7 August 2026 at 10:06:01 from Report_07-08-2026_100601_Monday.pdf and skips the weekday, which is already implied by the date.

A date is never taken from a file name unless the Pattern declares it. Where no complete date is declared, meaning %Y or %y together with %m and %d, the document has no date: From and To have nothing to compare against and are ignored, Item Label set to Date shows the file name, and the list is ordered by the time the files were written. This is deliberate. A date read out of a name by guesswork silently mislabels and misfilters, and a serial number such as Batch_2026072612.pdf is not a date.

Item Label chooses what the operator reads. The value written to the bound variable is always the full path, whichever label is shown. For a folder holding WTP Realtime report_2026-07-28.pdf, matched by WTP Realtime report_%Y-%m-%d.pdf and rendered on 29 July at 07:54 local time:

Date and Date and Time answer different questions. Date is the day the report covers, read from the file name. Date and Time is the moment the file was written, shown in the local time of the client. A batch of reports for different days that was rendered in one run carries the same write time for every file, so Date is the option that keeps the entries apart and Date and Time is the option that shows when the run happened.

From and To narrow the list by the declared date and are inclusive at both ends. They accept a date, a date and time, or the name of a variable holding one, which is normally a client variable written by a DateTimePicker. Both are optional and work independently:

The comparison uses the precision the Pattern declared, so a Pattern carrying %H%M%S supports a window such as 08:00 to 11:00 on one day. A value that cannot be read as a date is treated the same as an empty one, which keeps a page showing the whole folder while its date variable has not arrived yet instead of an empty list.

Where the Pattern declares a date without a time, the documents sit at the start of their day. A bound that carries a time therefore excludes them, so set the DateTimePickers to Date Only when the file names hold no time.

Text

Configure the text appearance of the closed dropdown box.

Position / Size

Configure the position and size of the DropDown object.

Access Control

Configure access control for the DropDown object.

Visibility

Configure the runtime visibility and blinking behavior for the DropDown object.