This week I was lucky enough to be chatting to a reader when he shared a requirement for a dynamic input mask. The exact concept was simple : when entering a telephone number, if the end user of the Interview types a number first, then the mask should default to the national format – for example (555) 1234-1234 – but if the end user types the international “+” prefix first then the mask should switch to a different one, for example +00 000 0000 0000 or whatever is appropriate. Outside of this example, there are frequently situations where more than one mask is needed, depending on some criteria or some fragment of data entry.

We should not forget of course that if all we want is a simple mask, then Intelligent Advisor has got it covered with the standard out of the box functionality. To implement a simple, static mask simply requires us to create an attribute of type Text and to select Masked Input from the Interview Ribbon before specifying the mask in the Input Mask dialog.

As an example, the following shows a Masked Input Control with a specific mask being implemented. In addition, you can see the Hint Text in the Interview tab shows the result in case you forget.

Clearly this is going to produce a good mask. But it cannot be changed dynamically, as it is part of the Control properties at runtime. So the possible solution is to use an Extension. In this case, a customInput. For the purposes of demonstration, we chose to use the jQuery Mask plugin. You can find more about it at the address : https://igorescobar.github.io/jQuery-Mask-Plugin/docs.html. The most interesting element is the fact that it supports dynamic masks. It uses the keypress event to enable the developer to check the character(s) and then change the mask. So this sounded like a great idea, and indeed proved quite straightforward. The code below shows that in fact there are several steps needed : define the two masks, and also handle the case when the area is blanked by the user.

Happily we found an old project where we had already used this dynamic input mask technique and adapted it for today.

Dynamic Mask

Here is the example code, of course you can get the Zip file from the Shop. There are some comments below.

/*  Generated by the OPA Hub Website Code Generator 30/11/2018 22:41
Educational Example of Custom Input Mask Extension for Oracle Policy Automation
I will remember this is for demonstration purposes only.
 */
OraclePolicyAutomation.AddExtension({
	customInput: function (control, interview) {
		if (control.getProperty("name") == "xMask") {
			return {
				mount: function (el) {
					console.log("Starting name:xMask customInput Mount");
					var div = document.createElement("input");
					div.id = "xMask";
					div.value = control.getValue();
					el.appendChild(div);
					var oldVal;
					$('#xMask').on('keypress', function () {
						var val = this.value;
						if ((val != oldVal) && (val.length == 1)) {
							oldVal = val;
							if (oldVal == '+') {
								$('#xMask').mask('+999-9999-9999');
								$('#xMask').val(oldVal)
							} else {
								$('#xMask').mask('(999)-999-99999');
								$('#xMask').val(oldVal)
							}
						} else if (val.length == 0) {
							$('#xMask').unmask();
						}
					});
					console.log("Ending name:xMask customInput Mount");
				},
				unmount: function (el) {
					if (control.getProperty("name") == "xMask") {
						console.log("Starting name:xMask customInput UnMount");
						var xMask = document.getElementById("xMask");
						xMask.parentNode.removeChild(xMask);
						console.log("Ending name:xMask customInput UnMount");
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
})

As you can see in this dynamic input mask demo, there is only really the mount to worry about. We use the keypress event and switch the mask based on the previous character pressed on the keyboard. And if no characters exist in the control we remove the mask ready for the next try. Here is a short video demonstrating the effect, and comparing to a static mask. The input control extension has not had any CSS formatting applied so it appears a little smaller than the standard. This can easily be changed.

Have a nice day! (the documentation about standard input mask functionality can be found online here).