Fields and Customer Rules

Overview

Each field on a design is one step on the kiosk: a line of text, a block of several lines, or a monogram. Select a field on the canvas (or add one) to see its settings in the sidebar. This article covers what each field asks for and the rules that limit what customers enter. For where the lettering sits and how it is sewn, see Placing, spacing and sizing lettering. What customers see is in Text, monograms, fonts and thread colours.

Field basics

• Kind — Text or Monogram (initials; see Monogram fields).
• Label — The name customers see for the step, for example Name or Team.
• Key — The field's internal name, used by pricing adjustments and in the order's data. A new field gets field-1, field-2 and so on; changing the label doesn't change it, so type a clearer key if you like (before you write adjustments for it). No two fields on a design can share a key: a design with two fields of the same key can't be published.
• Max Length — The most characters a customer can type: 1 to 160 for text (18 for a new field). A monogram takes up to 3 initials, or 4 with Allow 4 initials.
• Placeholder — The hint shown in the empty box on the kiosk.
• Default Value — Text the kiosk fills in to start with. The editor's preview and fit check sew the default value, else the placeholder, else the label.
• Font Families — The fonts the customer may choose from. A design can't be published while a field has none. See Fonts.
• Required — See Customer rules.

The server checks every rule again when an order is placed: it drops characters that aren't allowed, tidies spaces and blank lines, applies the letter case and cuts the text to the max length. A font the field doesn't offer is dropped, and the field's first font is used instead.

Text field options

A text field also has:

• Font selection — Choose from your BX font families. Each family can have multiple size variants. Only published font sizes in families that are not archived appear on the kiosk; drafts are visible in the editor preview only (uploads start as Draft unless you tick Publish now). Archived families are not offered for new fields.

• Pinned size — By default the size variant is picked automatically from the text length (the family's size rules). Pick a specific size here to always use it for this field. Customers can still choose a size themselves when the font family allows manual override.

• Layout mode — Multi-line, single line, or circular text. For circle text, Place on bottom of arc makes it arc down (along the bottom of the circle, like a smile) instead of up, and Set the arc by chooses how tight it bends:

  • Radius — the circle the letters sit on. The slider starts at the smallest circle the letters allow (1.5 times their height).
  • Angle — how far round the circle the text goes (10° to 180°). Every entry bends the same amount, so a longer name sits on a larger circle. The editor shows the circle the sample text sews on.

  A long entry is laid on a larger circle so it never wraps more than half way round; the editor says when the sample text does. Circle fields saved before these arc controls keep sewing on their old, flatter circle (at least six times the letter height) until you move the radius slider or set an angle.

• Font Size — Shows the letter height the field actually sews, in mm and inches. Without a Letter height (below), BX fonts sew at the size they were digitized at, read from the font file itself (a 1 inch Embrilliance file is 25.0 mm), so pick or pin another size to change it, and the kiosk only shrinks lettering, never below 60%, when the text needs room.

• Letter height — Set the size the field sews at as a height, in inches or millimetres (type either; the other follows), or tap a preset (0.25, 0.3, 0.375 and 0.5 in for left-chest names, and larger sizes). See Small lettering. Size by font file clears it.

• Alignment — Places the lettering in its box (left, centre or right) and, for several lines, lines them up the same way. The editor canvas and the kiosk preview draw it against that edge of the box, where it is sewn.

• Letter spacing, word spacing and line height — See Spacing.

• Text style — Shapes such as bridge, pennant, oval, or sheared text, with intensity and slant controls, plus character alignment and order. Slant only appears for plain lettering and the sheared styles (the other styles, vertical text and circle text ignore it); a sheared style shows the angle it sews at (15° unless you change it).

• Char Order — The order the letters are sewn in (for example C-L-R starts with the middle letter). The text always reads as typed.

• Reset Position — Moves the field back to a free spot in the stitch area. It only moves the field; its box size, rotation, spacing and alignment stay as you set them.

Clicking the base design on the canvas selects the base design, not a field: field settings are hidden until you select a field again.

Customer rules

Under the field settings, Customer rules controls what customers may enter for the selected field. The kiosk enforces these rules, and the server checks them again when a design is saved or an order is submitted, so they can't be bypassed.

• Required — On by default for new fields. Turn it off to make the field optional: the kiosk labels it Optional, customers can tap Next with it empty, the review shows Left blank (optional), and nothing is sewn (or charged as a thread colour) for it.

• Letter case — As typed, UPPERCASE, lowercase or Title Case (each word capitalized). While the customer types, the kiosk shows the text in that case; when they leave the field or tap Next, the text itself is changed. The preview, proof and stitch file always use the re-cased text. The fit check uses your sample text in this case too. A default value is shown in the field's case.

• Allowed characters — Any the font can stitch, Letters only, Letters and numbers, or Numbers only. Spaces are always allowed. The kiosk names any character that isn't allowed (for example Name can use letters only ("1" can't be used).) and won't move on until it is removed. Max length still applies. A design can't be published while a field's default value breaks its own rule.

• Thread colour choice — Any (customers pick any thread the kiosk offers), Selected (customers pick only from the threads you tick), or Locked (customers can't change it; the kiosk shows the colour as set by the shop). Default thread is the colour the kiosk starts with; for Locked it is the colour that is always sewn, and it is priced like any other thread (a metallic or off-machine thread still carries its surcharge or colour-change fee). The Default thread and Selected lists only show threads this design's kiosk can offer: threads with the design's thread tag, and only on-machine threads while the kiosk is set to on-machine only. A saved thread that is no longer offered stays shown by name with a warning. A design can't be published with Locked and no thread, or Selected and no threads ticked.

• Let customers colour each letter (text fields, off by default) — the kiosk shows the customer's text as a row of letters under the colour swatches: they tap a letter and pick its thread, or Same to keep the field's thread. Spaces and line breaks take no colour. A colour stays on its letter while the customer edits the text (typing a letter in front of it moves the colour along; a replaced letter loses it). Customers choose from the colours the field offers (with Selected, only those), and the switch is not available while the colour is Locked. Each different colour is its own colour stop in the stitch file and is priced like any other thread; when every letter has its own colour, the field's own thread isn't sewn or charged. The receipt, the proof email and the order page list each letter's thread.

• Thread for each initial (monograms) — a thread for each place in the stitched row, left to right, for example a gold centre initial in the classic style (the last-name initial). Presets follow the place in the sewn row, not the name order: the classic style only moves the last-name initial to the centre when there are exactly three initials, so with two initials the second place is simply the second letter. With Locked, these are always sewn and the kiosk shows them as set by the shop. With Selected, only the ticked threads can be chosen (unticking a thread clears it here, and a design can't be published with one that isn't ticked). Otherwise the kiosk starts with them, and customers can change them only if Customers can pick a thread color for each initial is on.

Case and character rules don't apply to monogram fields, which always sew uppercase initials A–Z. Fields saved before customer rules existed keep working exactly as before: no case change, any characters, any colour. If every thread you selected is later removed from your inventory, the field falls back to its default thread, or to any colour when it has none, so the kiosk never gets stuck. A saved design that a customer finishes later keeps the rules it was started with, even if you change them in the meantime. Fields left blank add no thread charges.

Multiple lines

Turn on Multiple lines for a text field to let customers enter several lines (a club name over a year, for example), and set Max lines (2 to 5). On the kiosk the field becomes a box with one row per line; customers press Enter for a new line, and on the last line Enter moves on to the next step (pasted line breaks past the last line become spaces). Max Length counts the characters of every line together. Blank lines are left out.

Each line is sewn below the previous one, aligned like the field and spaced by Line Height, and the kiosk preview, the approved proof and the stitch file all show the same lines. Give the field a box tall enough for every line: the fit check and the long-entry warning test the field with all its lines filled. Choosing Single or Circle layout, or the Vertical style, turns Multiple lines off, since those sew one line (and turning Multiple lines on switches a Vertical field back to Normal). Font size rules match the longest line, so a two-line entry gets the size each line needs. Extra lines cost nothing extra.

Monogram fields

Set a field's Kind to Monogram for 1–3 initials (or 4, see below). Customers type letters only (A–Z); the kiosk capitalizes them and stops at the field's maximum. Choose a Monogram style:

• Classic (first, LAST, middle) — Customers enter their initials in name order (first, middle, last). With three initials, the last-name initial is stitched in the centre and larger: John Michael Smith types JMS and gets J S M with the S larger. Centre initial size sets how much larger (1–2×, default 1.3×). With one or two initials, they are stitched as typed at one size.
• Straight initials — Stitched in the order typed, all the same size.

Each initial is stitched as its own lettering run, so the kiosk preview, the approved proof, and the production stitch file all show the same arrangement. The centre initial is the font's stitches scaled up, so check the result on a test-sew for very small or very large sizes. Layout mode, text style, and character order do not apply to monogram fields and are hidden for them.

Monogram fields created before this option existed keep stitching as straight initials until you pick a style.

More monogram settings:

• Allow 4 initials — straight style only (classic arranges exactly three). Sets the field's Max Length to 4.
• Letter sizes (left to right) — a size for each place in the stitched row, as a multiple of the base size (0.5–2). Leave a place empty to keep the style's own size (in the classic style, the centre initial uses Centre initial size).
• Customers can pick a thread color for each initial — the kiosk then shows a color row for each initial, for example a gold last-name initial in a navy monogram. Customers choose from the same colors the field offers (with Customer rules → Selected colours, only those). Each different color is its own color stop in the stitch file and is priced as a color change, like any other thread; when every initial has its own color, the field's own thread isn't sewn and isn't charged. The receipt, the proof email and the order page list each initial's thread. Not available while the field's thread color is locked by the shop (including a "selected colours" field whose threads are all gone, which falls back to its default color).

Letter forms (monogram fonts with alternate letters)

Some monogram fonts are digitized with alternate shapes for an initial: a left form, a right form, and an inner form (the third of four initials), beside the standard letter. When you upload a font, ThreadReady checks the file for these letters and remembers which initials have which forms. The fonts ThreadReady ships have none, so with them nothing below appears.

When a monogram field's font has letter forms, its monogram settings show Letter forms (left to right):

• Pick a default form for each place in the stitched row (for example the left form for the first initial). An initial the font has no such form for is stitched as its standard letter.
• Customers can choose the letter form of each initial — the kiosk then shows a Letter style choice for each initial that has forms in the font, starting at your default. Initials without any forms show no choice. A choice belongs to its letter: if the customer retypes that initial, it goes back to your default.

The field must sew a form in every size of its font family (the kiosk may pick a smaller size to fit), so only forms every size has are offered. If you switch the field's font family or pinned size in the editor to one without those forms, the choices it can't stitch are cleared. Opening a design never changes it: if its font family no longer has a form you chose (for example you added a size without forms), the editor shows a notice, those initials stitch their standard letter, and Clear the unavailable letter forms removes them when you want. The server checks every customer choice against the font and your settings, and refuses a form the font doesn't have. A form usually has a different stitch count, so with stitch-count pricing the price follows it, like any other change. The order page lists the form each initial was stitched in.

Fonts uploaded before letter forms were detected show none until the font is saved again.