<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Writing the Report > Picklist Manager > Advanced Picklist Customization

Note 1: Backslash (\) menus

Using a backslash will create a menu structure. The text after the final backslash is the picklist option. You can go as many layers deep as you want. For instance, for “Side Choice\French Fries”, French Fries would be the option. For “Side Choice\French Fries\Crinkle Cut”, Crinkle Cut would be the option. Use the same structure to add more options to your menu. “Side Choice\French Fries\Shoestring”, would add Shoestring as an option under Side Choice > French Fries.

 

Example:

 

 

Note 2: Caret (^) Paragraph Inserting

Implementing the caret allows us to have RapidRemarks inserted via a picklist. The picklist will compare the text after the caret with the titles of the RapidRemarks available to the current topic. The description after the caret is treated as individual tokens.  If the RapidRemark AutoPaste search method is set to search anywhere in the RapidRemark description, then a case-insensitive partial match is performed for each token.  If the result is a unique match, then the RapidRemark is inserted.  For example, if the RapidRemark was "Windows is broken", a picklist entry of "^win brok" will match.  Once inserted, the RapidRemark completely replaces the picklist that it was inserted with.  If you selected the wrong one, do an undo to recover the picklist (Ctrl+Z or Edit > Undo Change).  You can also include picklists within the RapidRemark which can provide for elaborate multi-paragraph construction.

 

Note 3: Double greater than sign (>>)

Using a double greater than sign allows multiple picklists within the same paragraph to be selected simply by selecting from a single picklist.  If you have a picklist entry as defective>>repair>>replacement, and you select that item in one of the picklists in the paragraph, then "defective" is used as the text result for that picklist.  It then looks at all the picklists in the same paragraph, and if they contain an entry "repair" or "replacement", it will automatically select it in those other picklists.  For example:

•Three picklists in their default state.  Garage action 1 has "Consider a replacement" and "Needs lubrication"; Garage Action 2 has "repair" and "replacement"

•You select only "defective" from the Garage Condition picklist which has the entry: defective>>Consider a replacement>>repair

•You select only "noisy" from the Garage Condition picklist which has the entry: noisy>>Needs lubrication>>repair

 

Of course you could have had a single picklist containing the entire sentence, but this was just an illustration of how it could be utilized.

 

Note 4: Double Forward slash (//) Comments

Using a double forward slash allows for adding notes or instructions to the picklist items. Text after a “//” is seen when the report writer goes to choose a picklist item, but is not inserted into the report.

 

Example:

 

 

In the above example, only the WIN03 is used to match the RapidRemark description shown on the right.  Since this is a RapidRemark picklist reference, the body of the WIN03 RapidRemark will be inserted in place of the picklist.  Had it not had the leading caret, it would not have looked at the RapidRemarks and would have simply inserted WIN03 into the report as the selected picklist item, ignoring the comment portion of the picklist item.