Text Only Responses in Fill in the Blank

[cyclicalreasoning]

I'm trying to limit fill-in-the-blank responses to text only. For example: participants are asked to fill in their name, but I need to make sure that they can only type text, not numerals.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

[jarvis24]

Not easily, although you can go the other way (ensuring it's a number). You could do it, but it would take listing the variable as an item in a responses.xls file (see the users guide for Advanced Features). Using the functions in the AF's, you can track what they input and use Excel's conditional logic to determine if it is numeric--and if it is, you could have Excel generate a skipto value of your choice. If you have it generate the same value as the current item's variable name, the MediaLab will not proceed.

[cyclicalreasoning]

Hi

Thanks for the response. Given the difficulty in setting the parameters for a "text-only" response, I think I will just reword the question. But, given how relatively simple the request is, and how easily it is to set a numeric response only parameter, text only should be included in future versions of MediaLab.

Take care, and thank you

Eric

[jarvis24]

Fair enough. But I'm curious to know--in what kind of situations would this be useful?

[cyclicalreasoning]

Hi

Somtimes, we want to make absolutely sure that participants only enter in their name (and not randomly press keys--some of which may be numeric). Basically, it gives us a bit more control over response inputs. No big deal really.

Thanks for the help.

Eric