The scroller above looks and behaves exactly like the scroller in the Easy Setup section of the help files. The main difference between the two pages is how they get their input parameters. The Easy Setup scroller gets all its input parameters from HTML param tags. The applet on this page gets some of its input parameters from a text file.

Using a text file as input to the applet is easy. Create a text file and put it in the same directory as the applet class file. Then use the 2 applet parameters textFile and insertTextFile to tell the applet the name of the text file, and where you want the lines displayed.

Now users with no knowledge of HTML can dynamically alter the scrollers real estate by modifying a simple text file. Dynamically changing information, like news or weekly promotions, can now be displayed on the scroller quickly and easily.


  Limitations

The text file is intentionally simple to allow modifications to be as painless as possible for the non technical user.
  • Only one text file may be used per scroller.
  • The text file should only contain displayable text and commented lines (/*this is a comment).
  • Only one block of text will be inputted and displayed.
  • The line number placement of the text from the input file in the scroller must be predetermined by the HTML author (this is not controlled automatically by the input file).
  • Changing properties of the inputted lines must be done in the HTML file using param tags (for example, use the default param tag colorDefault to control the color of the inputted lines).