Support for Non-mailmerge fields? about sablon HOT 7 CLOSED

I agree that getting used to MailMerge fields takes some time. When I started writing this library I didn't want to bet everything on them, so I tried to structure the code in a way, which should make it possible to add different kinds of fields.

Having simple text markers like {{expression}} or <<expression>> is a possibility but brings other inconveniences. Word mechanisms like spell-checking mess with the xml structure making it very hard to properly identify the markers. From my tests, it's hard to correctly parse out expressions in flowing text.

Also note that word provides a function to update all MailMerge field labels. This should make it less painful to spot bad edits like the ones you described above.

from sablon.

@TheBerg any thoughts?

from sablon.

@senny We decided to postpone this feature in our app because of some of the weirdness of how MailMerge labels work in MS Word. When we get back we plan on trying to add text markers to this project, we just didn't have the time to do that. In the meantime we are using liquid & wkhtmltopdf to get the same results, just makes it harder for our end users to be able to make changes.

from sablon.

Thank you for the heads up, I'm going to close this for now. Feel free to ping me again if you have questions.

from sablon.

I'm thinking of monkeypatching Sablon to specify my own text markers. My project is ok treating edge cases like spell-check as unspecified behavior.

Does that sound do-able? I'm guessing I'll need to change the KEY_PATTERN in mail_merge.rb and edit the field handlers.

Let me know if you think this is crazy. Or if it sounds useful I can post a snippet if / when I get working code, in case more folks want to experiment with this.

from sablon.

Hi @7imon7ays I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish, changing the KEY_PATTERN may be sufficient if you are still looking for mail merge fields. If you are looking for a different XML node then more logic will need changed.

from sablon.

Yes I was hoping to use something other than mail merge fields because Google Docs doesn't support those. But if it requires too much of a hack I'll try another solution first. Thank you.

from sablon.