Moving / Hiding templates

[pawe]

I've just been playing around with moving/hiding templates. The goal of this was to reduce the 'insert child/sibling' menu to the really used templates.

In UR v2, it was possible to some limits to move templates out of the templates path with Alt+L (Link/Move). Now with version 3.0.3, this is still possible, but seems to be quite buggy:

- some templates do not move (give an error), like 'contacts'
- some move, but not properly (like 'appointment': wont show any form fields anymore after a move).
- moved templates cannot be moved back again, because the 'templates' path doesn't show up in the Link/Move-window (same in old UR v2).
- one can also move the whole templates path to another location, which doesnt make much sense, but if you do it accidentally, you cannot move it back again later.

For the moment, I just rearrange my templates order (unused templates at the end).
Perhaps it would be best and/or most logical to prevent templates being moved away at all, and some day add an option to hide them from the insert menus?

[dasymington]

Originally posted by pawe
For the moment, I just rearrange my templates order (unused templates at the end).

I can't get that to work: I've rearranged the order of the templates but they still show up in alphabetical order in the Insert Child list. How do you get them to show in the order you've placed them?

[pawe]

Originally posted by dasymington
I can't get that to work: I've rearranged the order of the templates but they still show up in alphabetical order in the Insert Child list.

Sorry this was too nice to be true. It works only in the templates folder; in the popup menu they will always show up alphabetically.
I do some "sorting" there by giving the template names leading '_' or '!', you could also add numbers to the beginning of the template names. (I only did this with self made templates - don't know if it works for the core templates too - so better try this in an empty UR file first)

[dasymington]

Originally posted by pawe
Sorry this was too nice to be true. It works only in the templates folder; in the popup menu they will always show up alphabetically.

I've just found you can tear off the list of templates to make a toolbar and you can sort them there.

[pawe]

Originally posted by dasymington
I've just found you can tear off the list of templates to make a toolbar and you can sort them there.

Sounds good - but I do not understand how...?

[dasymington]

Originally posted by pawe
Sounds good - but I do not understand how...?

From the menu choose Tree | Insert Child. There's a little bar at the top of the list of templates. Tear that off and it becomes a toolbar that you can then customise just like the other templates, removing icons you don't want and changing the order.

Later: just discovered, this isn't as good as it seems! It was OK on the day I did it, but after closing down UR and opening it up this morning, the template icons in the toolbar are ALL back and in alphabetical order!

Kinook, is this a bug?

[pawe]

Nice, thanks for the trick!

Originally posted by dasymington
...but after closing down UR and opening it up this morning, the template icons in the toolbar are ALL back and in alphabetical order!

Same result; It seems the only thing that is stored in the layout (when changing layouts or re-opening a database) is the template toolbar as a whole, in alphabetical order, regardless of the order in the templates folder.
(I tried to delete, sort, move, and copy template icons within and across toolbars - which works momentarily but is not stored)

[janrif]

Have you tried treating templates the way favorites are treated? I haven't but it might work.

[dasymington]

Originally posted by janrif
Have you tried treating templates the way favorites are treated? I haven't but it might work.

Not quite sure what you mean; there isn't an Organize Templates command, like the one for Favorites.

[kinook]

Originally posted by pawe
I've just been playing around with moving/hiding templates. The goal of this was to reduce the 'insert child/sibling' menu to the really used templates.

In UR v2, it was possible to some limits to move templates out of the templates path with Alt+L (Link/Move). Now with version 3.0.3, this is still possible, but seems to be quite buggy:

- some templates do not move (give an error), like 'contacts'

This will be corrected in the next minor release. Note that moving a template elsewhere turns the item into a regular non-template item (and any items based on that template will revert to that template's template item), so you should not move the Contact template if you have any items based on it (since they will revert to the Text template and cannot be changed back even if the Contact template is restored).

- some move, but not properly (like 'appointment': wont show any form fields anymore after a move).

That's because if a template item is moved elsewhere, it is no longer a template (see note above).

- moved templates cannot be moved back again, because the 'templates' path doesn't show up in the Link/Move-window (same in old UR v2).
- one can also move the whole templates path to another location, which doesnt make much sense, but if you do it accidentally, you cannot move it back again later.

Tools | Compact and Repair (with all repair options checked) will restore system templates to their original location under Templates.

[kinook]

Originally posted by dasymington
From the menu choose Tree | Insert Child. There's a little bar at the top of the list of templates. Tear that off and it becomes a toolbar that you can then customise just like the other templates, removing icons you don't want and changing the order.

Later: just discovered, this isn't as good as it seems! It was OK on the day I did it, but after closing down UR and opening it up this morning, the template icons in the toolbar are ALL back and in alphabetical order!

Kinook, is this a bug?

The tear-off toolbar should not be customizable, which we'll fix. It would be possible for UR to sort the insert menu and toolbar in the tree order, which we'll consider.

[janrif]

Originally posted by dasymington
Not quite sure what you mean; there isn't an Organize Templates command, like the one for Favorites.

<ALT>+A See automatic sorting by 1,2,3,4,5 & a,b,c etc.

[dasymington]

Originally posted by janrif
<ALT>+A See automatic sorting by 1,2,3,4,5 & a,b,c etc.

Ah, yes; however, that would required changing the names of the templates, and I suspect from past experience that changing anything to do with the template attributes will change the modified date of all items based on them, which would be disastrous for the way I organise things.