Creating and editing custom properties

You are here: About property sets and properties > Creating and editing custom properties

Creating and editing custom properties

Custom properties can be arranged on custom property pages and the pages applied to document types and folder types. Users can then type property values on the property pages for documents and folders created from those types.

Note Depending on your overall computing environment, using many custom properties can cause poor system performance, particularly when application links are enabled. For information about optimizing performance of application links with empty properties, see NEW Configuring empty property synchronization.

Warning Deleting a property makes the property and all of its existing data unavailable in the vault’s history. Only delete a property that you know will never be needed again. To retain a property for vault history but make it unavailable for future documents, clear the property for all objects on the Applies to page, but do not delete the property.

To create a custom property:

In Configurator, expand Property Sets in the configuration tree to list the existing property sets. Expand the property set to which you want to add a new property. The names of the properties currently in the selected property set appear.
On the Edit menu, click New Property Definition. The New Property Definition dialog box appears.
Click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.

New property options
Option	Description
Name	Type a name that you want to appear in the Meridian client applications. Notes You cannot assign a name that is the same as a system property. The dialog box does not allow typing spaces in the property name. This is to prevent spaces in the optional corresponding VBScript property name that is set to the same name. If you want the name to contain spaces, finish creating the property and then edit the Display Name property described in the following table.
Type	Select the data type for the new property. For more information about the available data types, see Configuring property data types.

Click OK to save your changes. The new property appears in the configuration tree and its property pages appear in the right pane.
Click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.

Custom property options
Option	Description
Display Name	The default is the name that was typed when the property was created. This name will appear in the Meridian client applications and can be changed, if necessary.
Name	This name is used internally by Meridian Enterprise and cannot be changed once set. The default is the same as Display Name.
Type	The data type of the property. For more information about the available data types, see Configuring property data types.
Effectivity	Select an option to control the effectivity of changes to the property’s value. For more information about the available options, see Configuring property effectivity.
Enable for scripting	Select this option to make this property available to VBScript expressions and Visual Basic extensions. For more information, see Configuring properties for use with Visual Basic and VBScript.
VBScript name	A default name is calculated for the property to be used in VBScript expressions. Accept the default in most cases. Available only if Enable for scripting is selected. For more information, see Configuring properties for use with Visual Basic and VBScript.
VB Designer name	A default name is calculated for the property to be used by custom client extensions created with the Meridian Visual Basic designer. Accept the default in most cases. Available only if Enable for scripting is selected. For more information, see Configuring properties for use with Visual Basic and VBScript.
Include in Key Find	Key Find is a fast, sorted search for values of one property only. It is described in detail in the BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise User’s Guide. You can configure any string type property to be indexed for Key Find. Select this option to make this property selectable in Key Find searches. Note The Enable for scripting option must be selected and Name for scripting must be complete for the Include in Key-Find option to be active.
Value separator	Type a separator character to delimit multiple values selected from a lookup list or table. We recommend the semicolon (;) character. If any value is typed for this option, it causes the property to appear as a drop-down combobox control on property pages from which users may select multiple values. The selected values will then appear as a single string delimited by this character. Available only if Enable for scripting is selected. For this option to work correctly, the following restrictions apply: The property’s Type option must be set to String. The property’s Select a value from option the on its Validation page must specify the values to show in the combobox control. Users must have the Get values privilege to any tables specified for the Select a value from option. Note The combined length of selected values and separator characters are limited to the String data type maximum of 255 characters. Note To create multi-value data without the Meridian combobox control (for example, in a database for import into a vault or with the Set Property Value command), you must use the same separator character as specified here regardless of the locale setting of the computer. This is true for all properties, not just multi-value properties. Warning Do not change the separator character after it has already been used by some documents. Doing so will cause incorrect values the next time that the document’s properties are edited.

Click OK to save your changes.

You may now add the property to a custom property page, as described in Creating and editing panel elements.

To edit a custom property:

In Configurator, expand Property Sets in the configuration tree to list the existing property sets. Expand the property set that contains the property that you want to edit. The names of the properties currently in the selected property set appear.

Click the name of the property that you want to edit in the configuration tree and then click the Edit button to modify its property pages.
Select or type options for the new property using the descriptions in the preceding table.
Click OK to save your changes.

To delete a custom property:

In Configurator, expand Property Sets in the configuration tree to list the existing property sets. Expand the property set that contains the property that you want to delete. The names of the properties currently in the selected property set appear.
Click the name of the property that you want to delete in the configuration tree and on the Edit menu, click Delete. A confirmation dialog box appears.
Click Yes. The property is deleted.

Related concepts

About property sets and properties

Understanding the internal property sets