Disabling Rich Text Editor in Long Description

Answer

Maximo Asset Management 7.5 added the ability to use a Rich Text Editor for the long descriptions.
If you prefer, you can configure the product to use the text area for long descriptions again. This article describes how to do that and provides some warnings and caveats to consider if you decide to implement the change.

Important Warnings:

• The instructions provided here switch out the rich text editor for a text area. This process works; however, it has not been tested across all Maximo applications to determine whether there any issues (though it should generally work).
• The file that you change in the process described below can be updated by any subsequent hot fix or fix pack release. Whenever a hot fix or fix pack is installed, the control-registry.xml should be checked to see if it has changed. If it has changed, then the modification described in the following steps should be made again to the new control-registry.xml. Do not copy the old file that you modified and allow it to overwrite the file that was updated by the hot fix or fix pack. If you overwrite the file updated by the hot fix or fix pack, you risk losing important updates.
• The following instructions change only the control used for editing. Any existing records must be cleaned up and stripped of any embedded html.
• There are some applications that also use the richtexteditor control directly on some attributes; they have to be altered in the application designer (this change does not affect them).

Instructions for configuring long descriptions to use a text area instead of Rich Text Editor

1) Make a backup copy of the control-registry.xml file that is in <maximo_home>/applications/maximo/properties.

2) Open the file in an editor like notepad (or notepad++).

3) Find the text: <control-descriptor name="longdescription"

4) Once found, scroll a little farther down. Within that control descriptor block, there will be a section that looks like:

<component-list>
<components id="${name}_components_v" layout="vertical">
<components nowrap="false" id="${name}_components_h1" layout="horizontal" makevertical="true">
<label id="${name}_label" labelcss="@{labelcss}" title="@{label}" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}"
instance-class="psdi.webclient.components.LongDescriptionTitle" wraptext="true" textcss="@{textcss}"
wraplength="@{wraplength}" labelfor="${name}_richtexteditor,${name}_richtextviewer,${name}_textarea"/>
</components>
<components id="${name}_components_h2" layout="horizontal">
<required-indicator id="${name}_required_indicator" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" />
</components>
<components id="${name}_components_h3" layout="horizontal">
<richtexteditor id="${name}_richtexteditor" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" inputmode="@{inputmode}"
width="@{width}" height="@{height}"
plugins="@{plugins}" extra_plugins="@{extra_plugins}" dojo_require="@{dojo_require}" load_css="@{load_css}"
dojo_type="@{dojo_type}" hidewhen="{mobile}==true" />
<richtextviewer id="${name}_richtextviewer" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" width="@{width}" height="@{height}"
hidewhen="{mobile}==false or {rendertextarea}==true" />
<textarea id="${name}_textarea" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" width="@{width}" height="@{height}"
inputmode="@{inputmode}" hidewhen="{mobile}==false or {rendertextarea}==false" />
</components>
<children id="${name}_children" layout="none" />
</components>
</component-list>

5) Add the following text (in bold and blue, note the <!-- and --> that are added):

<component-list>
<components id="${name}_components_v" layout="vertical">
<components nowrap="false" id="${name}_components_h1" layout="horizontal" makevertical="true">
<label id="${name}_label" labelcss="@{labelcss}" title="@{label}" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}"
instance-class="psdi.webclient.components.LongDescriptionTitle" wraptext="true" textcss="@{textcss}"
wraplength="@{wraplength}" labelfor="${name}_richtexteditor,${name}_richtextviewer,${name}_textarea"/>
</components>
<components id="${name}_components_h2" layout="horizontal">
<required-indicator id="${name}_required_indicator" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" />
</components>
<components id="${name}_components_h3" layout="horizontal">
<!--
<richtexteditor id="${name}_richtexteditor" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" inputmode="@{inputmode}"
width="@{width}" height="@{height}"
plugins="@{plugins}" extra_plugins="@{extra_plugins}"
dojo_require="@{dojo_require}" load_css="@{load_css}" dojo_type="@{dojo_type}" hidewhen="{mobile}==true" />
<richtextviewer id="${name}_richtextviewer" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" width="@{width}" height="@{height}"
hidewhen="{mobile}==false or {rendertextarea}==true" />
<textarea id="${name}_textarea" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" width="@{width}" height="@{height}"
inputmode="@{inputmode}" hidewhen="{mobile}==false or {rendertextarea}==false" />
-->
<textarea id="${name}_textarea" dataattribute="@{dataattribute}" width="@{width}" height="@{height}" inputmode="@{inputmode}" />
</components>
<children id="${name}_children" layout="none" />
</components>
</component-list>

6) Rebuild and redeploy the maximo.ear file.