Search Results for 'script'

[Rocky Machado]

Hi Brendan – I have a couple of questions. Have the following methods been deprecated. form.getRecordsForSearchTerm() and record.setRecordColor() It doesn’t show up in the IntelliSense. Also, in the future will you being adding a feature to recalculate a form via the javascript API?

Oh, I’m running version 5.3.11 (Build 962)

thanks,
rocky

[Daniel Leu]

I would try something different: Save the image into a Dropbox folder, then have an AppleScript get the URL link and launch a Form script using the tapformz URL and use the shared link (and whatever else you need) as a parameter. Then in the Form script, you can create a new record, add data entries given via the parameter and fetch the image from the Dropbox link and attach it to the record.

I think this should work, but haven’t tried it!

Cheers, Daniel

---
See https://lab.danielleu.com/tapformspro/ for scripts and tips&tricks

[Sam Moffatt]

When you enable the CouchDB integration, Tap Forms writes to the CouchDB server in Tap Forms’ own format and sync’s that with each of the devices that are connected to that server. You can get to that data using the standard HTTP REST interface that CouchDB exposes and do interesting things with it, that’s how my TF Tools repository on GitHub works to do stuff like backups, dump document structures and pump data to ElasticSearch for visualisation (before Brendan added charts natively). All of that code is in PHP rather than Javascript because PHP is a language I’ve done a lot of code in and is reasonably portable.

Since the CouchDB API is a standard open interface, we can see what the format is that Tap Forms is writing and whilst it’s a little opaque with the field names it’s not impossible understand the format. If we write data in the same format that Tap Forms is expecting, then Tap Forms will display the records and let you interact with them. As far as your Tap Forms app knows the record came from another instance of Tap Forms.

I’m working on another blog post on how I use Safari to scrape this forum as I navigate it with a Tampermonkey script that writes to CouchDB. I then use Tap Forms to do my own search of the forum and create custom saved searches. Follows a similar concept where I create the structure in Tap Forms and then create records matching the structure via CouchDB’s REST API using Tampermonkey. I have a few tricks around record ID generation to make sure I don’t import something more than once as I navigate around.

[Marc Reichert]

Thank you for both of your answers!

@Brendan I will keep that in mind for other projects, but here I won’t be able to import the data in bulk, because the process should be streamlined like a production line. An artwork will be captured by one person while the other will then generate all the archival details needed, then it will brought into storage and the process starts again.

@Sam Moffatt I think I can follow your description and read your blog post but I’m not shure if I’m competent enough to modify your project to my own needs. Do I get this right that you directly inject database entries in the correct structure into the (sync)storage of TF which will then replicate to the local application data? I guess for the start we will go the manual way and create the records by hand and as it won’t be me hitting the select button some hundred times I’m not too bothered ;) But perhaps I could use this project to finally learn some JS programming.

[Sam Moffatt]

Yeah, function is another word for subroutine. I think the C folk went with function and that filtered down through that branch of the language tree. Etymology of language features is fun, subroutine, procedure, function, all roughly the same.

Ok, so welcome to the not so fun part of Javascript which is the amazing dearth of simple string formatting tools. This one has bothered me on and off for a while within Tap Forms but I’ve never had a good reason to figure it out. However I had another crack at something that might work but it’s a little awkward.

Coming from a C background there is a function called “sprintf” that formats a string. I found on GitHub a Javascript sprintf implementation and gave it a spin to see if it’d work. I did make one minor change and you can check it out on my own fork.

Copy that forked JavaScript file and create a new form script called “sprintf” and replace the placeholder text with the sprintf.js text (the link should take you to the raw version to easily copy).

Now for your use case where you want to embed, you should be able to use something like this:

form.runScriptNamed('sprintf');
payment_amount = 99.5;
izettle_charge = 12.54;
izettle_net_amount_received = payment_amount - izettle_charge;
result = sprintf("Amount paid: £%0.2f\riZettle charge: £%0.2f\rNet amount received: £%0.2f", payment_amount, izettle_charge, izettle_net_amount_received);

The form.runScriptNamed('sprintf') pulls in the library and defines sprintf (and also vsprintf for good measure). You’ll need to update your script to add that line. Then you’ll have to change the formatting to use the sprintf style formatting. I put in a relatively simple use case of sprintf which I think should give you the currency style formatting you’re after. sprintf uses percent signs as format markers so %0.2f says format a floating point string with two decimal places. It’ll pad to two decimal places for you as well and expand on the integral side appropriately. If you need a literal percent sign, put in %%.

I think that should get you further along with where you’re going.

[Victor Warner]

Sam,

Thank for the explanation of the use of a function. I guess it is similar to a sub-routine in AppleScript speak.

Concerning formatting. Do you mean in the Edit Field Script window changing the Result Type from Text to Number. If so, in this case – there is no output as the ‘return’ contains a mixture of quoted text and variables.

[Sam Moffatt]

Good to hear it worked out for you. One thing I forgot to mention is that once you have the script field working, you can set the field to be hidden so it doesn’t show up any more in the default layout. The Javascript integration gives you the ability to do some powerful stuff with Tap Forms though obviously with a slightly higher bar than a simple calculation field.

Just curious what made you make the leap from Ninox over to TF?

[Sam Moffatt]

You don’t need to use a function but having the function allows you to use the return statement to curtail execution flow. Without it you have to make sure the last value you set in your script is the value you want to set your script field to and using a function makes this neater for more complicated scripts. As you get down the track, using functions allows you an extra layer of encapsulation that can be useful for embedding scripts. I have a form script that I embed in other form scripts to do bulk creation. That works in part due to the use of a function to encapsulate the Javascript variables in a way that doesn’t interfere.

You need to change the format of your script field to be a number and the formatting settings should be identical to your calculation field. By default calculation fields return numbers and by default scripts return text. Just change the return type in the script editor and then the number formatting options for the field should work to get to two decimal places.

[Victor Warner]

Sam,

Belated thanks for this detailed and very helpful explanation (although what I wish to do has changed since your post).

Just a few of follow-up questions: I assume there is no functional difference, for the purposes of Tap Forms, in using or not using a function? For example there is no difference between;

function Final_Amount() {

	var payment_amount = record.getFieldValue('fld-bbf051ce1505486cbfc0c924b5b41029');

var izettle_charge_id = record.getFieldValue('fld-3c44182f03494f53bdb0d253d3058589');

	var izettle_net_amount_received = record.getFieldValue('fld-1e49468e17dc4ff1822860d16e893418');

		
	if (izettle_charge_id > 0)
	{
		return "Amount paid: £" + payment_amount + "\r" + "iZettle charge: £" + izettle_charge_id +  "\r" + "Net amount received: £" + izettle_net_amount_received;
	}
	
	return '';
}

Final_Amount();

And:

var izettle_charge_id = 'fld-3c44182f03494f53bdb0d253d3058589';

var izettle_charge = record.getFieldValue('fld-3c44182f03494f53bdb0d253d3058589');

var payment_amount_id = 'fld-bbf051ce1505486cbfc0c924b5b41029';
var payment_amount = record.getFieldValue('fld-bbf051ce1505486cbfc0c924b5b41029');

var izettle_net_amount_received_id = 'fld-1e49468e17dc4ff1822860d16e893418';
var izettle_net_amount_received = record.getFieldValue('fld-1e49468e17dc4ff1822860d16e893418');

if (izettle_charge > 0) {

result = "Amount paid: £" + payment_amount + "\r" + "iZettle charge: £" + izettle_charge +  "\r"  + "Net amount received: £" + izettle_net_amount_received;

}

else {

result = '';

}

result;

The second question concerns formatting of numbers. The fields used in the above example are set to numbers or a calculation, and formatted for currency. For example: “12.50”, but in using the script it appears as “12.5”. Is there a way to format the number with two decimals etc?

[Sam Moffatt]

You can create a script field and when you configure it to pull a value from a field, it will automatically watch the field and trigger the script. You can then use that script field to update another field in your form with what ever value you want. You can check to see if the destination field already has a value and then opt to do nothing. Another trick I’ve done is use the script field to store the previous value of the target field so that I can evaluate if I can safely update the target field to a new calculated value or not.

At it’s simplest, create a form with three fields: your source field, your destination field and a script field. Open up your script field and Tap Forms will have created a function for you that looks like this:

function Sample_Script() {

	// Replace with your own code
	var hello_world = "Hello World!"; 
	return hello_world;

}

Sample_Script();

The name of my script field was called “Sample Script” so the function Tap Forms generates was called “Sample_Script”. For the simplest use case, delete out the middle bit of code so that you’re left with an empty function, it should look like this:

function Sample_Script() {

}

Sample_Script();

Click into the text editor on the right in the area you just deleted and then on the left in the field list select the two fields we’re interested in and then click on the “ID” button. If double click the name of the two fields you are interested in, it’ll insert a one line piece of code with the field ID embedded. If you click on ID it will insert just the ID. I use the latter because it makes the rest of the code make more sense than repeating the field ID. I named my fields “Source Field” and “Destination Field” which are both text fields so when I click the “ID” button, my code now looks like this:

function Sample_Script() {
var source_field_id = 'fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c';
var destination_field_id = 'fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007';

}

Sample_Script();

Keep in mind the field ID’s (e.g. the fld-1234 part) will be different based on your own field ID’s and the field names will be based on your own fields. Normally we indent each time we open a brace ({) and unindent when we close (}). Let’s indent our variables. You can manually intend them with the tab key or you can click the “indent selection” button to indent the lines. Let’s see what that looks like:

function Sample_Script() {
	var source_field_id = 'fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c';
	var destination_field_id = 'fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007';

}

Sample_Script();

At this point we’ve only set up a “variable” to store the internal Tap Forms field ID. The next step is to get the value of the fields to check them. I’m going to get the value of the destination field first because if it is set then we can just stop the script. Fortunately Javascript is relatively loose with it’s typing so we can check if something is “falsey” easily and for our purposes that will work:

function Sample_Script() {
	var source_field_id = 'fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c';
	var destination_field_id = 'fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007';

	var destination_field = record.getFieldValue(destination_field_id);
	
	if (!destination_field)
	{
	
	}
}

Sample_Script();

What we’ve done here is get the value of the “Destination Field” and put that in destination_field. The next line checks to see if the value is “falsey” or otherwise negative. For Javascript a variable that is unset, undefined, null, zero, an empty string or false will be considered negative or “falsey”. The exclamation mark basically negates it so that it enters the if block when destination_field is not set. Sweet!

Last step is to get the value of the source field and then copy it across. The first step is to get the field value which looks like this:

var source_field = record.getFieldValue(source_field_id);

Similar to the destination field code, we use the source_field_id to get a copy of the field value into source_field. Next step is to set the value of the destination field:

record.setFieldValue(destination_field_id, source_field);

For getFieldValue we need to provide the field ID but for setFieldValue we need to give it the field ID of the field we want to set and the value we want to set it to. In this case we want to set the destination field to be the value of the source field.

There is one extra line we need to do when manipulating records from scripts and that is to call form.saveAllChanges(); to save our changes. When we put that together it looks like this:

function Sample_Script() {
	var source_field_id = 'fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c';
	var destination_field_id = 'fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007';

	var destination_field = record.getFieldValue(destination_field_id);
	
	if (!destination_field)
	{
		var source_field = record.getFieldValue(source_field_id);
		record.setFieldValue(destination_field_id, source_field);
		form.saveAllChanges();
	}
}

Sample_Script();

Now all going well if you save the script and create a new record when you set a value for the source field, the destination field will be set. If it doesn’t work immediately, try clicking the “Recalculate formulas” button at the bottom of the record next to the record size and colour pickers. Some times Tap Forms doesn’t immediately connect the script update and you need to refresh it to make it check for the script field updates.

You’ll notice that if you change source field again, the destination field won’t update even if you haven’t changed the value. If this is what you want without any thing else then you’re done and you don’t need to read any more here. However if you’d like it to be a little more advanced to keep updating the value until you change it then keep reading on.

I mentioned before that I sometimes use the script field to store information about the script state. You’ll notice that the script field isn’t in the field list on the left, so to figure out the field ID of the script field, create a new form script in your form, delete the contents and put the following code in:

form.getFields().forEach(field => console.log(`${field.name}: \t${field.getId()} (${field.fieldType})`));

It’s a single line and when you run it in the script editor, the console log will fill up with the details we care about, here’s the sample from my run:

25/5/20, 7:23:55 pm / Tristate / Field List
Source Field: 	fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c (text)
Destination Field: 	fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007 (text)
Sample Script: 	fld-f61256199b794f02b3e8dbb8620ee87a (script)

You’ll note the ID and names will match what we used earlier. I’ll make a few changes to the script to check if the previous value matches and to save the value we set for next time. Just like before our first step is to setup a variable for the field ID. Tap Forms won’t do this for us this time so we have to do it ourselves:

var sample_script_field_id = 'fld-f61256199b794f02b3e8dbb8620ee87a';

That’s relatively easy, we’ll also get the value of the field as well:

var sample_script_field = record.getFieldValue(sample_script_field_id);

Very similar to the code we’ve seen already. Our next step is to integrate this together and we’re going to need to change the if condition. Right now it checks to see if the destination field is empty (falsey) and set it to a value. Now we want it keep that check but add another check for if the script field had a value and if it matches, which looks like this:

if (sample_script_field == destination_field)

Now we can rewrite our if statement to handle these two conditions: if the destination field is empty or if the destination field equals the sample script field:

if (!destination_field || sample_script_field == destination_field)

Let’s plug this in together:

function Sample_Script() {
	var source_field_id = 'fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c';
	var destination_field_id = 'fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007';
	var sample_script_field_id = 'fld-f61256199b794f02b3e8dbb8620ee87a';

	var destination_field = record.getFieldValue(destination_field_id);
	var sample_script_field = record.getFieldValue(sample_script_field_id);
	
	if (!destination_field || sample_script_field == destination_field)
	{
		var source_field = record.getFieldValue(source_field_id);
		record.setFieldValue(destination_field_id, source_field);
		form.saveAllChanges();
	}
}

Sample_Script();

Update the script and save it then give it a go. You’ll notice it isn’t working properly, what gives? Well we need to do one more piece, we need to return the new value when we set it for the script field. If you remember the template had a return line in it so we need to do that here as well. When we set the field value, we should return the value that we’re setting. Then Tap Forms will store that in our script field for us, let’s update the script to add that:

function Sample_Script() {
	var source_field_id = 'fld-eb01c448b3ba4c08a20159faca0d631c';
	var destination_field_id = 'fld-ac1628a83f4f4c82b256cf362691a007';
	var sample_script_field_id = 'fld-f61256199b794f02b3e8dbb8620ee87a';

	var destination_field = record.getFieldValue(destination_field_id);
	var sample_script_field = record.getFieldValue(sample_script_field_id);
	
	if (!destination_field || sample_script_field == destination_field)
	{
		var source_field = record.getFieldValue(source_field_id);
		record.setFieldValue(destination_field_id, source_field);
		form.saveAllChanges();
		return source_field;
	}
}

Sample_Script();

This will return the value that we’re trying to set. If you save the script field and then create a new record you should notice that it works correctly. You’ll also see that the script field itself also contains the same value too. Now if you go to an existing record though, the script field doesn’t have a value set yet and won’t automatically update the field value. We could fix this in code however this is a bit of an edge case. To reset those records, you just need to delete the destination value and then hit enter. This will trigger the script to run and reset the value of the field to the source field then update the script field.

For you, the next step would be to code the custom logic you want to change the destination field to based on the source field but that’s obviously something for you to do. Hopefully this helps!

[Brendan]

Ok, thanks for the use case description.

[Brendan]

Hi Mike,

Tap Forms has a JavaScript function called Utils.copyTextToClipboard('Some text'); and var value = Utils.copyTextFromClipboard();. So yes, you can use a script in Tap Forms to copy and paste to the clipboard.

Also, Tap Forms has automatic triggers when any of your scripts get a value from a field in your form. For example, var amount = record.getFieldValue(amount_field_id); would cause your script to automatically execute if the value of the amount field was modified.

Hope that’s the information you’re looking for. The scripting instructions are here:

https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/5.3/en/topic/scripts

And there’s the Script Talk forum on my website where you can go to talk about scripting. There’s lots of information and sample scripts there.

Script Talk

Thanks,

Brendan

[Sam Moffatt]

I have a bunch of what I call task specific layouts that make sense for each use. A simple example is my main purchases form where I have the default layout (which itself is broken up by section headings to allow me to collapse areas), a details view that actually was inspired by my original Bento layout that has a subset of the default layout, quick entry which has the fields I generally need to change the most inputting a purchase, relationships which gives me an overview of how the record is connected to it’s related forms (line items, gallery, sibling purchase entries and shipments) and a quick details which is a much more limited overview that fits on all of my devices without scrolling. There’s a QR pane as well but I rarely use that, it was something I was experimenting with for printing and wouldn’t want to review.

I have scripting I use to jump into Tap Forms at various places (perhaps not surprising based on the forum posts) and having layout support would be useful. I could see for others having workflow integration from external applications though obviously I can only speak for my uses.

[Sam Moffatt]

I have a bunch of processes where I scan in receipts and have those automatically upload into a Tap Forms document via the CouchDB sync. I wrote a blog post on using PHP and CouchDB to upload receipts which could be modified to do a similar thing for your own project.

I have some local changes that I need to clean up as well that make it a little easier to configure but that approach would work. I use it with a scanner but if you dropped files in the directory using any program then it’ll pick them up and import them. If there is special encoding in your filename then you could also use the PHP script to extract that into a field as you import them into CouchDB as well. CouchDB sync with Tap Forms then will pull the changes back into Tap Forms where you can edit the newly uploaded entries.

I have a few different uses these days beyond my fuel receipts that I wrote in the blog post, I set one up for my work related expenses as receipts and I also now scan invoices for purchases I receive from different vendors. In the past I’ve used similar scripts to bulk import images as well, at one point I imported a copy of Digital Blasphemy’s ZIP files into a Tap Forms document.

[Mike Mullin]

Hi Brendan,

I’m a former Ninox user and I remember it has a function called “Trigger after update” where you can create some sort of formula which extracts certain field data (i.e. text or number data) and copy/paste the data into a regular text or number field. If you then double click these regular text or number fields you can customize the data.

Let me explain why I want to do this.

I have a form called “Billable items”. This form has records with a text description field and a price field. To create an invoice I’m selecting records from this form (Link to Form). I sometimes want to change or add words to the description field or adjust a price (i.e. if I want to give my client a certain discount). I don’t want to create a new record for every adjustment because within a short amount of time the record list will expand and I lose overview of all the available records.

Is copy/pasting field data and then customizing the data something which can be done in Tap Forms using Javascript? (Sorry, I have no knowledge of Javascript (yet ;-))

Best,

Mike