Getting around width limitations of Multipart Textboxes in Application Designer

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I recently had a client ask me if it was possible to increase the size of a multipart textbox in Maximo without making a global change to the field sizes using the field-size-config.xml.  He wanted to change the length of the Itemnum field in the multipart textbox that contains the Itemnum and Description because in some cases the complete item number was not visible.

Unfortunately there is no way to modify the length of a single field that works for a multipart textbox.  However you can use two separate text boxes (itemnum and description) to get the behavior he was looking for.  That will enable you to adjust the size of the field using other methods that work for a single text box including the method described in the link on Changing/Configuring the width of a single field on the UI:

/support/pages/node/140929

In you also still wish to be able to see the long description as well for the Item Description, then add the lookup value "LONGDESC" to your Description field and then the link to the long description will be enabled.  After adding your itemnum and description fields as separate text boxes, and then modifying the width of the itemnum field by using the method described in the link above, you would see the following results ( I have kept the original multipart textbox on the screen to show you the differences).

So now you can see the complete Item number (CAPACITOR100) displayed in the individual textbox that contains just the Item number.  In this example I set the width of the field to 200 (pixels) to get the itemnum field to display this width.  You can experiment with the width value to change the field size to your desired length.  So if your multipart textbox isn't showing all that you need then try splitting it into two individual text boxes and making them the correct size to show your data.