The XpressDox Desktop Explorer: some tips and tricks

This article looks at using the XpressDox Explorer rather than the Windows Explorer in the Desktop add-in implementation. There are many benefits which you may miss out on if you stick to using the Windows Explorer.

 

Windows Explorer

By default the Explorer you get when you click Open, Save or Run Template is the ordinary Windows Explorer. And using the same techniques you know from Windows, you can pin folders and access your Quick Access section, making it easy to find folders and templates.

 

 

XpressDox Explorer

However, there is a setting on the XpressDox ribbon to change this to the XpressDox Explorer. To change explorers, click Settings on the ribbon > Explorer > select one or the other. This is only available from v14 onwards. If you are on v12 or earlier then you can only use the XpressDox Explorer. From v14 onwards you have a choice which one you would like to use, but there is a lot of functionality behind the XpressDox Explorer and therefore many reasons to use that one!

 

 

How to navigate using the XpressDox Explorer

When clicking Open, Save, or Run Template, you will be presented with the XpressDox Explorer which may take a bit of getting used to. It is divided into several sections:

 

 

• The green section presents a drop down list to your recently accessed folders. If you want to quickly browse to the displayed folder in the navigation bar at the top then click on the white page to the far right, also shown in the green bar.
• The blue section shows a list of your recently used templates. Double click on any one of them to perform the action e.g. Open / Run.
• The orange section shows Favorites. Any template can be added here, and it is user specific.

 

A closer look:

When pressing the Explore button (in the green bar) you will be given a special version of a Windows file opening dialog, one which helps you navigate around your folders. Notice that the default file name in the File Name field is Choose Folder.ext – this is a hint to you that it is the folder that you are choosing. Double clicking on a template will open / run that template.

 

Recent files and folders

The Explorer has two most recently used (MRU) lists: One for files, and one for folders. The dropdown list at the top of the UI is populated with the folder MRU and the right hand list view is populated with the file MRU when the Recent Files and Folders node in the tree view is selected. (Expanding the Recent Files and Folders node in the tree view shows all the recently used folders. In addition, the recently used files appear in the File Name drop-down list).

When you select Open Template or Run Template then the Recent Files list is shown when the Explorer opens. When you select Save Template then the list of files (and sub-folders) in the folder at the top of the folder MRU is shown.

This way, once you start working in a particular folder or folders, the MRU lists will tend to have the files from those folders and you will not need to navigate too far and wide to find the templates or other files that you are working with.

1. In the Open Template mode you might want to view the files in the current folder in the folder MRU: Do this by clicking the white page button shown in the green section in the above screenshot;
2. To view the files in the same folder as a file in the Recently Used files list: Right-click the file, and choose Open Containing Folder.
   c. If you need to open the assembled document from a template in the Recently Used List (or any other list for that matter): right-click the file and choose Open Assembled Document Folder. You will be taken to the configured document save location. Select the desired assembled document.

 

 

Favorites

Any template can be added to Favorites; right click on a template in the Explorer and click “Add to My Favorites”. These templates will then be available in the Favorites section (shown in orange above) and also from the “My Favorites” in the XpressDox ribbon.

 

Add folder lists for quick access

You can create lists of favorite folders. These lists appear under the My Folders node in the tree view.
Creating a list can be done by:

a. Right-clicking on a file in any view and selecting Add to My Folders. It is the folder, not the file, that is added to My Folders. You will need to type in a list name, or select one which is already there, and the folder is added to that list with the name you give it.
b. Use the Add to folder list toolbar button at the top left of the Explorer UI.

 

Benefits to using the XpressDox Explorer:

Up until now this article has discussed navigation which is all very easy to do in Windows. Pin to Quick Access, navigate around in Windows to get to your folders and you’ll be fine. And perhaps that is fine for template runners. For the most part, template runners will be using the cloud anyway. The benefits to using the XpressDox Explorer are more for template authors than for runners. Arguably the most useful would be as follows, and each will be discussed in more detail:

• Create descriptions and titles for templates
• Check syntax
• Preview templates
• Create artefacts
• Search for templates in a folder / sub-folders

 

Create template description / titles

When saving templates with the XpressDox Explorer, you can give the template a Description. This is useful if you have templates with similar names, or simply as a reminder to yourself what the template does. You can also give the template a Title, a much more user-friendly version of the file name.

 

Toggle between titles / file names when browsing

It is not only useful for template authors to see, but also for template runners.

In the Desktop implementation, both the description and the template title are visible to runners:

Template runners click Run Template, and in the XpressDox Explorer can toggle between viewing File names and Titles:

 

In the cloud implementation, only the template title is available to template runners. They can toggle Show Titles at the screen to switch between file names and titles.

 

Create artifacts

The first time a template is run, and thereafter when the template (or any of its included templates) is changed, artifacts for the template are created to speed up the running of the template. The template is a little slower the first time it runs, and subsequent runs are much faster. It is advised that tasks are set on your cloud account to automate this process, and it can be done on the desktop as well. Click Open Template and navigate to the folder for which you want to create the artifacts. Ensure that you are not looking at a recent list but that you are looking at the folder contents. Either Browse to the folder, or click the white page icon.

Right click anywhere on the list of templates and click “Check syntax of Templates in Folder”.

 

 

A by-product of the artifact creation is that the syntax of all the templates will also be checked, and a report will be created. This report will be saved as SyntaxCheckLog.csv and located in the same folder where you ran the artifacts, but will also immediately be opened on completion of the check. Syntax errors can immediately be checked and fixed.

 

Check that the syntax of your templates in a folder is correct

You can also check the syntax without doing the artifacts as described above. Before uploading templates to the cloud and exposing templates to users, or if you simply want to double check that all your syntax is correct, click Open Template and navigate to the folder you want to check. Ensure that you are not looking at a recent list but that you are looking at the folder contents. Either Browse to the folder, or click the white page icon.

Right click anywhere on the list of templates and click “Check syntax of Templates in Folder”.

 

 

Any errors will be reported. A SyntaxCheckLog.csv will be created and saved in the same folder which you have just checked but will also immediately be opened on completion of the check. Syntax errors can immediately be checked.

 

Search for a string in a folder / sub-folders

Another very useful tool is to search through your library of templates for a specific search term. The Windows content search does not cater for .xdtpx files, and so this is where you can search through templates for a string.

Again right click in a folder you wish to search (be careful that you are actually inside the folder, and not just in the recent list. You can navigate to the highest level of folders as this search can include sub-folders.

 

Optionally widen your search to include sub-folders. Enter the string/s to be found (one per line). Experiment with other settings here like making your search case sensitive, or introducing wild cards into your search.

Click Start Search to begin. You will be presented with a list of files in the XpressDox Explorer which match your search term/s. It is useful to switch on the Preview to look through them, or you can simply open them.

 

 

Preview templates

Before you run or edit a template, should you want to preview it then click the Preview button shown below to open the Preview pane on the right. The template cannot be edited in this way but you can search through it using Ctrl + F.

Toggle the Preview button off again should you wish to switch off the Preview pane.