Using the Command Assistant

The Command Assistant is available on the XpressDox ribbon

 

It empowers the template author by:

• presenting a list of recently used data elements that can be re-used
• presenting a list of all the XpressDox commands
• supplying examples and help for each command
• supplying helpers that construct the syntax of each command.

 

The Command Assistant is divided into 3 sections; Favorites, Commands, and Data Elements/Fields. There may be a 4th section for Scripts.

 

Commands

Typically, the author will have a new or existing template and come to a point where they would like to enter a command but don’t know or can’t remember either the command’s name or syntax or both.  Type only the first few characters of the command, e.g. “«Choose” into the filter bar. The Command Assistant will display all commands which contain that search term.

 

Once you have found what you are looking for, you can:

• pin it to your Favorites
• use the question mark to visit the help article on the Learning Center
• Click once on the command to get examples
• Double click on the command to open up the default helper.

Note that on some of the helpers, the default may not be what you want; single click on the command to get a different variation of the helper.

Once the helper is open the right, answer the questions. It is usually a data element name, as well as some attributes around that data element name.

 

 

In this example it would be the data element name of the horizontal radio button list, and the choices that would be available to be selected from the list. Recently used data element names can be selected from the drop down list, or you can type your own if you need a new one. The helper will adapt to the command you have chosen, and will provide guidance along the way. Complete the questions and click OK to insert the command into your template.

If you know the syntax of the command you need you can of course type it into your template.

 

 

Data Elements / Fields

A template author does not need assistance only with typing of commands, but also with selecting the correct data elements.  The Command Assistant contains a section for Data Elements / Fields and this section gathers recently used data elements for re-use in the template. Double click on a data element to insert it again in the template.

Should you wish to insert data elements from another template, simply add that template into the Command Assistant by clicking on the menu at the top:

 

Click on “Include new Data Source or Template” and browse to your template. A list of that template’s data elements will appear in your Command Assistant, and you can double click on them to insert them into your new template, ensuring that data element names remain consistent.

You could also browse to a schema you saved when creating a data source. This is a list of data elements created from the database you’ve connected to. Read here for more information on how to connect to a data source.

 

Data elements are refreshed every time the template is saved, but if you find this is not happening you can click “Add or Refresh the Current Template” to force newly created data elements to appear in the list.

 

And “Add Current Template as Standard” means that the list of data elements will be available in the Command Assistant in all templates you create, whereas normally the list does not persist to new templates. A Standard template can be removed from the Command Assistant when you are finished with it.

 

 

Favorites

Add commands to the Favorites section with the “Pin” icon.

 

Note that when you type something into the filter at the top of the Command Assistant, it will filter through all sections.

 

Reverse Engineering (editing) a command

Sometimes you have a command in an existing template which has some parameters omitted and you would like to supply some or all of the missing parameters.  ChooseFromDataSource and Define are good examples of this, as they have quite a few optional parameters.  Instead of re-typing (or getting the Command Assistant to re-type) the command from scratch, simply click on “Edit Fillpoint” from the XpressDox ribbon or double click on the fillpoint. There is a button on the Command Assistant to toggle between the XpressDox double click (which edits a fillpoint) and Word double click (which selects a word). The icons are described below.

 

 

The Command Assistant menu

Note that there are some useful features in the Command Assistant menu:

 

Commands can be sorted alphabetically or by category. Sort them by category to get an idea of the context in which all the commands are used. But ultimately the easiest way to search for a command, whether you know its full name or not, is to filter on a search term at the top.
The Data Elements / Fields section above explains adding templates to the Command Assistant.

 

Next is whether XpressDox should insert fillpoint delimiters or a comma after inserting a fillpoint. You may think this is strange, however there are times e.g. the Tab command, where you need a horizontal list of data element names separated by a comma inside a command. It is very quick to construct such a command by quickly changing from fillpoint delimiters to a comma, and then double clicking on data element names from the Command Assistant.

 

Then specify whether you want the Double-click on a fillpoint functionality to be the normal Word “select” functionality, or XpressDox “edit fillpoint functionality. By default if you double click on a fillpoint, that fillpoint will be edited.

 

And lastly Help, which would take you right here to the Learning Center!

 

Videos:

Please visit the Videos page for 2 videos on using the Command Assistant.