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Slide notes: In this tutorial we will show how to do a droplist selection box. First, we look at it in operation. This report is currently performed for a Current Month selection of January 2011.

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Slide notes: On the droplist, which clearly shows the different Period options available, we can select a different value for Current Month.

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Slide notes: And when we choose to re-calculate the page, then the new selection of Current Month will be used.

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Slide notes: The droplist is a lot more user friendly than a standard input box where the User may not know what the available or meaningful choices are.

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Slide notes: How do we do it? Let's have a look at the tag for the Current Month selection.

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Slide notes: We choose the Template for a Droplist Box.

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Slide notes: The runtime name MUST equate to the appropriate name on our runtime names list. In this case, for Current Period, we use the Name that we always use for Current Period.

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Slide notes: The listbox can be any listbox that we have provided in IES for any kind of value selection, but for Periods we have 3 special Listbox options.

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Slide notes: The one that we will choose, will offer all Current Year Periods, and additionally the 25 Periods immediately before and after the Current Year. This is the most commonly used option, but we can also choose the 'all Periods' option or the 'Current Year only' option.

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Slide notes: The size for the droplist box is selected as the number of characters wide that we want it to be.

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Slide notes: And it's just as easy as that.

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Slide notes: The important point is that whatever runtime Name we wish to apply for the droplist box, it must be on the list of Runtime Names for this page.

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Slide notes: And, depending on the kind of value offered for selection, we may need rules. In the case of using Periods on a droplist, we will always need a rule called "period".

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Slide notes: On the Help we can see why, and it is because we show the Period options to the User in a friendly manner that includes the name of the Period, but for the page calculation only the leading digits that imply the Period Number should be provided.

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