HotDocs Tips & Tricks

The ASK instruction does exactly what it appears it will do - forces HotDocs to ASK (present to user) a specific variable or dialog.  ASK is quite often under utilized, as many developers permit HotDocs to generate a template interview.  For those developers in the know, there is a lot more functionality, flexibility and control possible when you write your own interview.  For those developers who design their own interviews, use of the ASK statement is absolutely critical.

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.