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Submitted by Tom on 2010/06/11 06:01

[How To] append a piece of text to multiple items ?

I want to add the same piece of text to multiple items, is this possible ?

Example, say I want to add the text "in progress" to 50 items, I would want the 50 items' text to remain the same, just that "in progress" would be added at the end of the item-field text

Comments

Yes, it's very easy :

Your best bet is probably to create a new Y/N field called "InProgress", and in the equation auto assign section field you'd put.

A:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "-- in progress")

You could also have the option to remove the "-- in progress" tag by adding :

E:Item=RemoveKeyword(item, "-- in progress")

Note that you can write the "-- in progress" part however you want... I added the "-- as a separator", but you can remove it . It you do so, both equations (the E: and A: one) need to have the exact same string "in progress")

You could also put the equations in the ~~%Done~~ task%complete field so that as soon as the ~~%Done~~ task%complete increases, it show : "-- in progress"

AM:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "-- in progress") | E:Item=RemoveKeyword(item, "-- in progress")

[quote=Armando]

You could also put the equations in the ~~%Done~~ task%complete field so that as soon as the ~~%Done~~ task%complete increases, it show : "-- in progress"

AM:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "-- in progress") | E:Item=RemoveKeyword(item, "-- in progress")

[/quote]

you're getting into a world that's very foreign to me there Armando (lol)

I think I'm one of the most disorganised people I know - I dont use the IQ Calander - or any other, nor do I use any of the prioritising and/or todo type features in IQ.*

I had intended to start a thread asking about something along those lines (how people go about "that sort of thing", so - if you were considering it - dont respond in any detail about it here)

* On the other hand, I have gotten quite organised within the main job I've been doing over the last couple of years - but it's been all related to work done on files (the product) and their status, in terms of what stage they're at

[quote=Armando]

Yes, it's very easy :

Your best bet is probably to create a new Y/N field called "InProgress", and in the equation auto assign section field you'd put

[...][/quote]

great, I suspect I'll be making a few of that type of field

[quote=Armando]Your best bet is probably to create a new Y/N field called "InProgress", and in the equation auto assign section field you'd put.

A:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "-- in progress")

You could also have the option to remove the "-- in progress" tag by adding :

E:Item=RemoveKeyword(item, "-- in progress")

[/quote]

this works great

__________________________

I had the idea to use it for something else - I still have a lot of linked files from when a single-click-link was not automatically created.

If I add <a href=[FileFullName]>Link</a> to the item field, I have a link that I can click once (instead of three times) to launch the file. This could also be convenient for creating a link from the URL field

I tried:

A:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "<a href=[FileFullName]>Link</a>")

strangely, if the FileFullName field has content, then the text in the item field it is deleted and replaced with nothing (i.e. left blank)

If there is no text in the FileFullName field, just this is added to the field:

_____________________________

I'll try one with the url field -

A:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "<a href=[URL]>Link</a>")

exactly the same results.

I guess it cant handle something with the link text, maybe the square brackets

Do you think this 'should' work ? I could see the URL version being used by others if it worked but dont know if it's worth following up on...

> A:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "<a href=[FileFullName]>Link</a>")

What is happening is that the equation parser sees [FileFullName] and does the substitution

. This is by design.

You could try this...

Rename FileFullName to something else
Repeat your steps
Restore the FileFullName field name

HTH

I think there's maybe an easier solution :

A:item=item & " (<a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>)"

I'm not sure where Tom wants the link exactly, and how he wants it, but that adds the word

link

at the end of the item field.

[edit : I created a shorter version. First one was uselessly long. The best place to put it would probably be the "fileref" field to put the autoassign rule - the filefullname is a "virtual concatenation", so it doesn't trigger the "add" (A:) switch.]

that works a treat Armando

I made an AddLink field with this auto-assign rule:

A:item=item & " <a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>"

which adds a link to the current item text thus: link

[quote=Armando]

[...] The best place to put it would probably be the "fileref" field to put the autoassign rule - the filefullname is a "virtual concatenation", so it doesn't trigger the "add" (A:) switch.

[/quote]

I only wanted this for some (older) file-linked-items so didnt want to use fileref field - I dont need this link on newer linked-to-file-items as they have hyperlink already.

I dont understand 'the filefullname is a "virtual concatenation", so it doesn't trigger the "add" (A:) switch' - but I think maybe I dont have to (?)

> I dont need this link on newer linked-to-file-items as they have hyperlink already

OTOH, using this method (adding link at end of item text) could be a good way to get around the sorting problems with linked & non-linked items:

Currently (in general) linked items sort before non-linked items

So I might try using the FileRef field...

[edit] I'm unable to edit the previous post - I actually do understand what you were saying about using the FileRef field as opposed to the FileFullName field - it just took a while to sink in ;-)

Nice. I'm happy it works well for you.

You're right that this could help solving the sorting problem. I might add the "link" to the end of my items too....

[quote=Tom]

that works a treat Armando

I made an AddLink field with this auto-assign rule:

A:item=item & " <a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>"

which adds a link to the current item text thus: link

[/quote]

this works well as said

A danger is: if I untick this and retick it, all the text in the item field is deleted...

Thought I should warn anyone trying it out - presumably this could be avoided by having a reverse version of

A:item=item & " <a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>"

i.e. the equivalent of

E:Item=RemoveKeyword(item, " & "FileFullName" & ")

or could that work ? - I'll experiment later anyways

Normally, unchecking and rechecking shouldn't do anything if you don't have and E: equation. There might be some problems because of the nature of the filefullname field... Or maybe because of the parsing problem Pierre mentioned before. Not sure.

Normally, in that case, unchecking and rechecking should just add an extra "(Link)" at the end of the item field.

====

And by the way, you could have used the addkeyword() function to add the item, it's just that I didn't think it was necessary in that case :

A:item=addkeyword(item, "<a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>")

And then use

E:item=removekeyword(item, "<a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>")

...to remove the "Link" part.

[quote=Armando]

And by the way, you could have used the addkeyword() function to add the item, it's just that I didn't think it was necessary in that case :

A:item=addkeyword(item, "<a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>")

And then use

E:item=removekeyword(item, "<a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>")

...to remove the "Link" part.

[/quote]

no,

that deletes *all* the item field content when I simply untick the AddLink field.

And if I just use the first half it works but I get an error message
---------------------------
A field rule [AddLink] references field but this field does not exist. The rule cannot be executed. Continuing processing rules...
---------------------------

I will leave it at that as it seems too unstable...

I'll revert it back to -

A:item=item & " <a href=[" & "FileFullName" & "]>Link</a>"

which worked okay

and I would say:

if you're going to use this idea !!! USE WITH CAUTION !!!

[quote=Armando]

Your best bet is probably to create a new Y/N field called "InProgress", and in the equation auto assign section field you'd put.

A:Item=AddKeyword(Item, "-- in progress")

You could also have the option to remove the "-- in progress" tag by adding :

E:Item=RemoveKeyword(item, "-- in progress")

[/quote]

I just wanted to let you know that this one is working very well

Nice to hear.

I wonder why the other one doesn't work. If I have the time, I'll look at it later. My guess is that it's because of the fullfilename's nature.