Custom Category - Multiple Snippets & Dropdown Lists

[Solved] Custom Category - Multiple Snippets & Dropdown Lists

Greetings Workians

I'm currently learning Realm Works, and currently playing in the Manage Categories section and have discovered the need for two things that I don't know - thou I'm sure there will be more later.

The first thing I'm trying to find, is a way of creating a new Category that when a new snippet is requested in World Almanac that multiple snippet's are added because of that request.

For example: When adding a new planet, there are always three snippets that make up one entry for this new addition. 1) Name, 2) Descriptions, 3) Images.

Is there a way to add a "New Planet" that will add all three of these snippets?

The second thing I have discovered, is that for different snippets than above, some information is always one answer of a set number of answers. I would like to know if there is a way to form a kind of "Dropdown List" that can be selected, instead of typing the answer each and everytime?

If you define the three snippets in your new category, they will be shown in every new instance you create. If you already have instances of the category and chenge the definition afterwards, you have to resync the instance.

To have a kind of dropdown you have to create new tags and use a taglist.

To expand on tkarn's answers a little...

If you edit the category definition (or make a new customized version of the category of your own design), when adding sections and snippets, there's an "Auto-Add" checkbox. When this is checked, the snippets and categories are automatically added to new Topics using that Category. The "Shown" checkbox makes them available or unavailable for manual selection later.

Dropdowns are a problem child of a sort. Tags are pre-populated lists of choices, and each set of selections is separate. Some tags have settings that allow selection from only one Tag Domain, but that can he changed to allow selections from ANY Tag Domain. Likewise, whether only one choice is allowed, or multiple choices are allowed, can be a setting on each Snippet added to a Category definition.

Got and understand Dropdown selection (in concept anyway, haven't put that to the test yet).

On the other question, I believe I didn't include enough information to obtain the answer I expect.

Currently the Custom Category is setup to include one planet with the three snippets correctly. Currently, the way I would add information is update the one planet I have been given, and then would click to add another snippet for Name, Description, Image three times to get the required fields.

I'm wondering, if its possible to call this for example "Planets Full Description" and when you choose to add one of these, it adds all three snippet types.

You want to define sections. No, there are not pre defined sections.

So in trying to work around the limitation of adding predefined snippet sets to a topic entry, I was wondering if there was a way to add multiple snippets via the custom category section, so that when creating the topic of it, it has X copies for that information instead of just one copy of each snippet.

Just make copies of the snippet. I've done this on many occasions.

I know I can do that, but I also dont want to have to add 12 different snippets in a precise order when I want to add 4 planets.

So I'm guessing because there wasn't an answer to the question that this is not a thing currently possible.

KiwiBlaze said:

I know I can do that, but I also dont want to have to add 12 different snippets in a precise order when I want to add 4 planets.

So I'm guessing because there wasn't an answer to the question that this is not a thing currently possible.

Click to expand...

No, you can't add a set of snippets (or a section containing snippets) as a single action.

Looking at your topic structure, are you never going to want to link directly to a single planet within a system? If you are, then having each planet as a separate child topic of the system topic would allow for such linking.

The way I was thinking of doing would be (if this works)

1. Sector Name
   • Short review of its timeline, or at least its current ownerships
   • Short descriptors that would detail what is visible when looking at a system as a whole.
   • Using this as a building asset visual guide.
2. Planet name for the sector
   • Much more details on a single planet as a whole thing.
   • Short city descriptors for this location
   • Using this full page as a guide.
3. City/Town names for the planet
   • Planet details that change for this location
   • Using this as a guide, mostly the video.
4. Battle grounds / Dungeons / Major Encounters
   • Details, creatures, and ownership details.
   • Ideas and concepts from here.

My idea, except for the last cluster (4), was to include data that can be obtained from this level of inspection. So at a distance of "System", you can tell this about a certain Solar System Body of Interest.

This short description wouldn't be the full contents of what that location is. When you move the focus to an Solar System Body, you get the full text, then you can tell things of this level, and see this Bodies locations or important areas. For example, Earth has these major cities, you can learn about this government style, you can learn about these cultures.

When you move closer still, and approach a location on/within that planet, you get to learn about other details that make planet information different to this location (eg if this planet is considered a "Water world" but this location is on dry land, explaining this difference).

Another idea I just now thought of is it possible to custom "Quick Access" panel on the side of the screen where "table of contents", "Containing Topic", "Relationships" are that I could filter to show this I want shown there?

I know Containing topics will show the next level of items here, but don't always need just that information for this learning process of mine. (And I know about relationships, but... that isn't filtered to what I want to show).

I simply don't understand why you want this all as one topic when it should be separate topics, and I think a lot of the other responses are equally confused.

Basically anything important enough to have a name and be worthy of having more than a couple of lines of description should have its own topic. Why do you want to shove it all into one?

I ubderstand what you are doing, and I actually did that for a different reason (chronological information about a city and its region through the millennia).

I basically created a new category and set it up with all the repeating sections so I could add the different basic information plus a list of places that were related to each "chronological city".

BUT!!! It really didn't work - it was cumbersome, long and I struggled with quickly finding the information I wanted (not to mention RW didn't like the repeated name-titles in the sections). So I resorted to having an introductory topic that had almost just a quick list with a short description that then took me to a separated topic for what would have been each section. That child-topic didn't go into full detail because I didn't want it to be bogged down, but it gave a lot of information (and maps) while pointing to further deeper information in other topics.

Although I would prefer to have a way of dynamically sharing the same piece of text in different topics (so I can read an overall piece of information without moving to a new topic), this approach allowed me to have only a very detailed topic on a subject that several other topics would then point to instead of having a long topic with the common piece of information and then a first level of all the other topics that depend on that info.

For example: place A is located in region B, and existed from century C to century D. Instead of having each section dedicated to a time period (repeating time snippets, maps, and overall descriptors on social-economical practices and architectural styles), I just have a snippet per time period with a short text that sends me to the individual topic (with maps, and overall descriptors on social-economical practices and architectural styles). To get more ind-depth information, there are specific topics that describe those practices and styles that actually follow a similar approach - overall description, and then children topics to explore subtle variation from a specific moment in time and/or region.

I hope my experience will help you find the best way for you to organize your realm - but I really must agree with kbs666 in that what you are trying to do now is probably not the best approach with how RW works.

Teresa said:

Although I would prefer to have a way of dynamically sharing the same piece of text in different topics (so I can read an overall piece of information without moving to a new topic)

Click to expand...

I added a feature request a long time ago to allow the overview snippet (or something similar) to act as the tooltip when hovering over links in other topics. This would provide a brief summary of what you'd get by following the link without actually needing to follow it.

Its not all in one topic, I was wanting to have:

If you are in a solar system, and scan the next solar system you travel to, you learn this information about these locations from this distance.

While I personally don't like it, this layout is still possible.

1. Information from a distance
   • From System View
   • From Orbit
   • From Shuttle
   • From Ground
   • Full Description

tkarn said:

I hope my experience will help you find the best way for you to organize your realm - but I really must agree with kbs666 in that what you are trying to do now is probably not the best approach with how RW works.

Click to expand...

And with your other statements, yes.

Farling said:

I added a feature request a long time ago to allow the overview snippet (or something similar) to act as the tooltip when hovering over links in other topics. This would provide a brief summary of what you'd get by following the link without actually needing to follow it.

Click to expand...

Yes, I remember that (upvoted it at the time) - and I'm still dreaming with its implementation!

Teresa said:

Yes, I remember that (upvoted it at the time) - and I'm still dreaming with its implementation!

Click to expand...

Me too, so I asked kbs666 to add it to his list.

Greebo said:

Me too, so I asked kbs666 to add it to his list.

Click to expand...

There are a few issues with that, although I'm not opposed to making such a feature. It is entirely possible to define a category without an overview snippet. It is also possible to create an overview snippet that isn't text or isn't something that the tooltip control understands.

So if the proposal became something along the lines of "allow the tooltip for a topic/article link to be a user defined text snippet defaulting to the overview snippet." I'm fine with it. The present tooltip is pretty useless.

KiwiBlaze, if you want to create multiple sections with the same snippet layout from predefined data, then my CSV2RW tool can create them if you have the data in Excel or CSV files.

It has the ability to configure a set of columns which it will scan in each row to create 0 or more sections that match what you have set up in the realm's structure definition.

See http://forums.wolflair.com/showpost.php?p=267997&postcount=295

kbs666 said:

So if the proposal became something along the lines of "allow the tooltip for a topic/article link to be a user defined text snippet defaulting to the overview snippet." I'm fine with it. The present tooltip is pretty useless.

Click to expand...

That makes sense +1 from me

ErinRigh said:

That makes sense +1 from me

Click to expand...

See the tooltip feature request at http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=50125