what's the best approach to do this...

[Dave Parker]

I'd like to have a form or "input tiddler" that would allow me to do
the following:

display a list or grid of buttons (maybe checkboxes with their labels)
whereby I could click 2 or three or more of them, then click a
"submit" or "enter" button which would cause the list of words/button
labels to be written in the order they were clicked to a data field or
tiddler custom field or a tiddler slice area in one line. After that
you would be able to do another series of selections and submit it to
the next line underneath that first one. Perhaps I would want to even
have different submit buttons that would write the words to a
different slice or field within the one tiddler (like "Subjective",
"Objective", "Assessment", and "Procedure"

I think something like this is probably do-able with current plugins,
but there are so many options I'm not sure where I should start. I'd
like to get a suggestion or two from some of you more advanced TWers
to get me started.

Thanks,
Dave Parker

[FND]

> I'd like to have a form or "input tiddler" that would allow me to do
> the following:

> [snip]

I don't think this is possible with existing plugins (because you need a
buffer to store the selections), so I wrote a quick experimental macro:
http://devpad.tiddlyspot.com/#ButtonMemoryMacro
Is that kinda what you had in mind?

-- F.

[Dave Parker]

That's it exactly, as far as the idea as a whole. Was something
supposed to happen when I pressed submit? (I imagine not yet, but
just curious)

Thanks for taking the time to write that up! I hope this will
eventually be useful for others as well. I would imagine something
like this might be useful in a classroom setting to enhance note-
taking with TW, or perhaps note taking during a meeting of some sort
or perhaps in observatory research (recording the order of things a
rat does in a maze??). Of course my intention is to develop something
I can use in the clinic to record SOAP notes fast enough to make
having a TW file for each patient feasible.

Dave

[FND]

> That's it exactly, as far as the idea as a whole. Was something
> supposed to happen when I pressed submit?

Sorry; I noticed some bugs and fixed them, temporarily rendering the
plugin non-functional in the process.
It should work now; please (force-)reload the site.

-- F.

[Dave Parker]

yes, that's great. I'm shortly going on holidays, so when I get back,
if I tweak it so it keeps each line and adds a new one above, I'll
post back here in the new year


thanks again FND,
Dave

[Dave Parker]

I've been playing with the plugin a little, and to refine my last idea
from this morning, it would be ideal to actually see the words appear
as they're clicked, and the submit would be equivalent to a carriage
return to start a new line or send it to a field or whatever (its
still a little vague in my own mind) Again, when I have time I'll
study how you did that and maybe post back with progress / questions

Dave

[FND]

> it would be ideal to actually see the words appear as they're clicked

Done:
http://devpad.tiddlyspot.com/#ButtonMemoryMacro
Note that I have changed the syntax for the macro parameters; button
labels are now in a single parameter, separated by semicolons.
That's because eventually, we would need additional parameters for
various configuration options (e.g. pre- and suffixes, class names for
custom styling etc.).

> the submit would be equivalent to a carriage return to start a new
> line or send it to a field or whatever

All of that would simply go into config.macros.btnmem.submitResults()
then, using the config.macros.btnmem.selection[] array to retrieve the
user's inputs.

-- F.

[Dave Parker]

(I'm still here)
Thanks FND, that's awesome! I don't know what that last sentence
means, but I look forward to figuring ti out when I get back

DP

[FND]

> I don't know what that last sentence means, but I
> look forward to figuring ti out when I get back

It basically means that the provisions for processing the results (e.g.
by submitting the list to some server interface) are already there - we
"only" need to fill in the respective code.

-- F.