HotDocs Tips & Tricks

When it comes to REPEATS in HotDocs, LIMIT is one very handy instruction to know how to use.  As its name suggests, it will LIMIT the number of iterations a repeat can hold, by placing the instruction in the dialog script of the dialog you wish to limit.  Please note that this is entirely different to the number of rows shown on a repeating spreadsheet dialog.  LIMIT will restrict a dialog to have only (for example) 3 iterations, where as the rows shown command will allow a repeat to hold countless iterations, but only show a specified number.

Another HotDocs instruction model that does exactly what it sounds like, FORMAT allows you to specify the formattin of a “list style” RESULT.  Rather than explain, I’ll simply provide 2 examples which demonstrates everything you’ll ever need to know about FORMAT.

The HotDocs instruction “FILTER” is one that I use in almost every system that I’ve designed.  Its purpose is exactly what it sounds like - to filter (a repeat), based upon a certain criteria, so that the data output from the repeat is reduced - only the repeats that match the filter come out.  Like most instructions, it is best explained by example.

The ascend instruction is used with the REPEAT instruction to sort the resulting output.  Here’s what the official HotDocs help file states:

The ASCEND instruction sorts lists of answers (gathered using a REPEAT instruction) in alphanumeric order, from 1 to 9, and from A to Z. The DESCEND instruction sorts lists of answers from 9 to 1, and from Z to A.

There are two major uses for the ASCEND instruction: in a computation and in a template.

You want to control the number of lines that appear on a dialog that displays in “Spreadsheet” style.  Quite often, the default number of lines visible on a spreadsheet style dialog are aesthetically offensive. We need to control this for two reasons: 1) its ugly; and 2) screen real estate is quite often at a premium.

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.