HotDocs Tips & Tricks

You need to SET the value of a variable, but want users to be able to edit the value even after it is SET.  HotDocs will GRAY a variable (prohibiting editing) if the SET command is processed on the dialog, and DEFAULT will not overwrite a variable’s value.

A “regular” script to SET a variable to a value (based upon a Multiple Choice variable) probably looks something like this:

IF ANSWERED ( Var_MC )
IF Var_MC = “1”
SET Var1_TE TO “red”
ELSE
SET Var1_TE TO “blue”
END IF
END IF

As soon as Var_MC is answered, Var_TE will acquire an appropriate value, and subsequently GRAYed out - because it is processed dynamically by the dialog script, and whilever those conditions are met, the variable will not be editable. 

When working with Dialog Elements, particularly Horizontal Lines, you may wish to add a line (or vertical space) before the dialog element.  You COULD add a separate dialog element for the spacing. But that adds to your scripting and dialog management.  Instead, you should add a <.pm> Code before and after the Prompt for the Dialog Element.

Dates in Time Matters display as Dates on the Matter form. But, they are actually stored as Numbers. When you bring them into HotDocs via the Database Connection or Active Integration, you get a number, and not a date. This solution is courtesy of Bart Earle.  Dates are stored as the number of Days from December 28, 1800. The solution is to create a computation that takes that number and converts it into a date that can be used and formatted by HotDocs. 

Quite often, you’ll want to dynamically create the options of a multiple choice variable from a repeating dialog (or other source).  This HotDocs snippet will detail how you can do that.  The concept is simple - if you ADD an option to the MC variable, you also accumulate the ADDed value in a text string, so that you can test against that string later.  Then, each iteration, you test whether the current value you may wish to add already exists in the text string and if it does, you do NOT ADD it.  If it does NOT exist, you ADD it to the MC variable, and also to the text string.

Welcome to the new Basha Systems HotDocs Tips site.  It is run by our blogging software, but will grow to operate much like any information site…