Validating Custom Item Required Responses

[jarvis24]

Don--I've attached a revision of the previous attachment that simplifies it and takes care of the repeat feedback if more than one item is no answered. The sample que file that accompanies it also contains just this item flanked by simple instruction items so that there should be no file location issues that arise when testing it. I've also added a few comment lines that explain some of complicated looking stuff. Please let me know if it helps!

[jarvis24]

Note in response to the orginal post (see above), one could change the syntax in this custom item to require that just one or more questions be answered (as opposed to all). I didn't test it, but you should be able to simply replace all the instances of "||" (meaning or) with "&&" (meaning and). This would then generate the feedback message only if no questions were answered.

[Don Lund]

Thanks for the clarifications. So I entered in this code throughout a number of different HTML questionnaire files. It works properely in 2, however in most of them I get the following error message:

An error has occurred in the script on this page.
Line: 8
Char: 5
Error: 'documnt.Q1norms.nr1.7.checked' is null or not an object
Code: 0
URL: file:///C:/MediaLab/Samples/Reciproc...%20%20%20.html

Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?

I get the above message whether the questions have been answered or not.

When I run the questionnaire I'm attaching, the Q1norms gives me the error messages while the demos works properely. They are both used by the questionnaire I'm attaching.

[Don Lund]

Please verify that my response with attached files was received. I don't see it here on the board yet and wanted to make sure it got sent/attached.

[jarvis24]

Most posts with URLs in them are spam so we have them go through a moderation queue before being approved. Will take a look at your files now and see if I can tell what's going on. <minutes pass>

I just ran it and did not see the error. What do you have to do exactly to see this error message?

[jarvis24]

On second look, I noticed it seems to be the 7th option it doesn't like in every case. Coincidentally you have 7 options for each item (in your Q1norms.html file). I am not a java pro, but I believe one difference between your file and the one posted before it, is that the array indices start at [0] in the earlier sample, whereas you have your indices starting at [1]. If Java likes the indices to start at 0, then maybe try referencing them as 0-6 rather than as 1-7. Also, you might try adding the first few lines of code from the previously posted sample--it will get rid of the annoying IE security message while testing your item in IE, and will also allow the MediaLab fonts and colors to be applied. i.e., as the first lines of the HTML file:

<!-- saved from url=(0013)about:internet -->
<!-- previous line supresses security control from IE-->
<style><ml.styles></style>
<!-- previous line requests that this page uses current colours and fonts from MediaLab-->

[Don Lund]

Thanks for taking a look at this. In general I must say I don't like using the ml.styles code with HTML questionnaires. The fonts are so large it makes it "impossible" to preview the formatting of the questions... but that's rather unimportant.

I don't have time to verify that you've fixed my problem, however I went into the code and changed the first variable to range from 0-6 instead of 1-7 as you suggested. When I ran it again and clicked submit without clicking on any radio buttons I got the proper "please answer all questions" popup that is supposed to happen.

Then I ran through the same questionnaire again and answered the first question (the one now changed to 0-6 values) and clicked submit without answering the other questions. Now the error message was the same as I posted before but it referenced the second variable - which is still valued at 1-7.

Hopefully you've solved my problem, however I must say that I find it odd that this is the cure. I guess I'll just have to recode everything later so that all my zeros are 1's for analysis purposes.

I'll post again tomorrow once I have a chance to verify that this truely is the fix.

Whats up with Java and 7's?

[Don Lund]

So I believe you've solved my problems. The interesting part that doesn't exactly make sense to me is that the HTML code specifying the values for each response are now numbered 1-7 (as I would want them to be), however in the Javascript statement, I had to renumber everything so that it's 0-6. I guess the Java just accesses the results starting with item 0 no matter what the value you assign it is. For this reason, when I had it looking for item 7, there was no item there because that would actually be the 8th item the Java looks at.

I'm attaching the revised versions of the above attachments for anyone else who wants to write some validation code.