Suggestion: Fields

[kf]

I would like to suggest adding fields to MyInfo. Essentially, fields would contain texted linked to somewhere else (sort of like cloned documents, but more specific). There are two different ways fields could be used:

1. Fields from the treepane could be inserted into the text pane
2. Fields from the text pane could be inserted into the treepane

- 1: This would be the more simple direction to go (says my non-programming mind!). Each document could have fields (column data) inserted into it. User clicks a button to insert a field, chooses one of the columns and, poof, the data is inserted into the document. If the user changes the column data, the field within the document is also updated. Further, there are two other types of fields following this idea:
a. Fields to columns in same document
b. Fields to columns in other documents

- 2: I think this is harder because it is more general. What would have to happen is the user highlights a portion of text in the document and converts it to a field reference (gives it a name). Then the user can go to the treepane and insert that field into a column.

What is the use of fields? Basically, allowing data to be displayed in more than one way while making the user only update it once. Sort of like clones, but fields would deal with text within documents. One specific thing this would allow the user to do is to easily customize the output of an rtf document. Currently, the column information comes out at the top of each document and there is no way to control them. But, if there were fields, a template could be made by the user, outlaying the different columns, their formatting, and relative positioning. Then a simple output to rtf... and the columns are right where the user wanted them.

Like I said, I don't know how easy this would be to implement. If it is implemented it would require some thought about how it fits into the whole MyInfo tagging/cloning features.


Kevin

[JanRif]

I'm not sure I understand what you want to do unless it is adding columns to documents w some kind of hyperlink or wiki function. Is that it?

[kf]

No not quite... think of if more like how fields work in MS Word. You can insert a field, say "Today's Date," and everytime you open the document, the date is current. A field placed in the textpane from the treepane could be the document name (I know it's already there, just above the textpane, this is just an example). If I change the document name in the treepane, the field in the textpane changes to match. If I put a field that references the tags column, all tags are inserted into the textpane and updated as I update them in the treepane.

Kevin

[JanRif]

No not quite...

Think I got it: cloned fields between document title & textpane? Can you give me example of usage?

[kf]

For a quick introduction open up MS Word or OpenOffice Writer and click on Insert -> Fields. There you can play with them and see them in action.

How could this be useful for MyInfo? The simplest version is a treepane field inserted into the textpane. (Actually, the simplest version would be date/time, document info, and file info fields... anything that is not user editable.) In this case, ANY column in the treepane could be inserted into the textpane. Say I have a contact list stored in MyInfo (Addresses, email, phone numbers, etc). I could create a new document for each contact. The Treepane would contain a bunch of custom columns: Address, Email1, Email2, Phone Number, Age, Birthdate, etc. In other words the treepane looks like this:

Code: Select all

Doe, John | 26 | 456 Strawberry Lane | abc@123.com | 01/26/86 |
Doe, Jane | 45 | 354 Pickle ave      | def@567.com | 03/45/67 |

Those are two contacts in the list. Now this works great for sorting and finding which contact you want to send an email to. But, it's not nice to read, especially if you've got 15 different columns filled in. So you make a field of each column and put it into the textpane. The data is exactly the same: the field just replicates what it's attached to. If John Doe moves to a different address, just update his address in the treepane, it automatically changes in the textpane. The advantage of the textpane is you can have your contact information look like this (anything inside curly braces is a field):

Code: Select all

{Doe, John}
Age: {26}
Birthdate: {01/26/86}
Address: {456 Strawberry Lane}
Email: {abc@123.com}

In fact if you wanted to get really fancy, if fields were able to calculate, you could make the age field dependent on today's date and the birthdate... but I'm getting extremely idealistic here! Essentially, in this example, fields would allow you to customize the view of the data without having to update more than one instance.

Lot's of different programs are using fields these days: Word, AutoCAD, Writer, to name a few. My biggest gripe with information storage is that I would like to have one place where all my data sits, and then be able to change the view to suit what I'm doing. I don't want to change the same piece of data multiple times. Ultimately, this is what a database is for: a central storage area with all the data and then the user tells how they want to view it. But I don't want to program a database!

Does that make more sense? Is there any other way data could be stored and then viewed in different ways?

kevin

[Petko]

This suggestion makes a lot of sense. It will integrate very well with the existing columns feature and will be very helpful. My only concern is that it may be a lot of programming work and testing. I have to research this in order to know is it achievable for version 4.

[kf]

I totally understand that... honestly, even just having fields that are not user-defineable would be kind of cool (combinations of date/time, document info, etc).

Thanks for looking!

Kevin