Information valid for AMI version 8.0 initial release
Summary
The purpose of the Datasheet Gadget is to provide an interface for the user to view, compare and edit the attributes of a collection of objects. It provides similar features to the Attribute Gadget, but allows the user to work on more than one object at the same time.
The collection of objects displayed is always related to the currently selected object, and is defined by the Show... drop down list at the top of the gadget. The user has the choice of viewing children of the currently selected object, siblings of that object (including itself), instances of the object and the current object itself. Note that when viewing instances of an object, any instances which are currently in a bin will not be displayed.
The gadget displays a table of data with a row for each object, and a column for each attribute which is present in any of those objects.
When the gadget first loads, the data cell in the top-left corner of the table will be highlighted in blue to show that it is currently selected. Clicking any other cell will make that cell the selected cell. The arrow keys and TAB key can also be used to change the selected cell.
Attribute Values
The attribute values shown by default are based on the currently selected language (selected in the page header), but the gadget does allow the user to compare the values for all the languages for which the user has access.
Each attribute column will show the value in the most specific Scope for each object, but the gadget also allows the user to view the values in all of the attribute's available scopes.
If an attribute is present in some of the objects but not in others, the gadget will display buttons to add that attribute to any objects which don't currently have it.
If an attribute value cannot be added, an empty, dark grey data cell will be displayed.
If an attribute is present but has no value, the cell will be empty.
Showing and Hiding Scopes and Languages
Each object row has a cell containing two buttons. The first of these buttons allows the user to show the values in all Scopes for every attribute shown in this object's row. The second lets the user show the values for all Languages for every attribute belonging to the object.
Depending on the type of attributes being displayed, each attribute column heading can also potentially contain these same two buttons.
If an attribute has more than one available Scope then the Scope button is displayed. If the attribute is language-dependent, the Languages button is displayed. These buttons perform the same function as the matching buttons on the object rows; showing and hiding Scope and Language values for each attribute column.
Note that these each of these controls can only be active in one axis of the table at any given time. So for example if the user has chosen to display all Scopes for a particular Attribute, the Scope buttons for every Object will be disabled.
If preferred, these expansion buttons can be hidden using the gadget's Options dialog.
Editing Values
Double-clicking any data cell will make that cell the selected cell and also open the cell's value for editing in the in-line editor. Pressing ENTER will open the currently-selected cell for editing. To end an editor session press ENTER to save the value or ESCAPE to cancel.
The inline editor lacks most of the features of the standard AMI editor. If you need these features you can open the selected value in the full AMI attribute editor by pressing F2.
Inherited values are drawn with a slight transparency effect and can only be edited by holding CTRL or CMD while double-clicking the value or pressing ENTER. While holding CTRL / CMD the value will turn green to indicate that the editor will open the inherited value, and this change will affect any other objects which are inheriting that value.
Similarly, to override an inherited value (for attributes which support overrides) hold SHIFT+CTRL/CMD while opening the editor. The value will turn red when these modifier keys are held to indicate that it will be overridden in the editor.
If an attribute value cannot be edited, perhaps because the user does not have access to its Workflow state, editing will be disabled.
Column Sorting
Each attribute column heading contains a small triangle icon. This is a sort button, which will re-order the rows of the table based on the values in that column.
Row Filtering
If enabled in the workspace, each column can contain a filter input field. Typing into these fields will hide any rows whose values do not match the filter input.
Dealing with Large Data Sets
If the collection of objects to be displayed contains many attributes, the Datasheet Gadget's table may be very large and it may take a long time to draw. The Datasheet Gadget offers a number of features to help deal with this:
Resize Columns
By clicking and dragging the border of a table heading, Datasheet columns can be arbitrarily resized to make better use of available space in your browser. Note that any changes you make do not persist, and the next time the table is refreshed the columns will not remember their previous sizes.
Trim Fields / Replace Images
If your attribute values contain a lot of data or large images, from the Options menu you can tell the Datasheet to only show a limited number of characters per cell, and to only show a small generic placeholder icon for images.
Do Not Render Formatting
The Options menu also contains a checkbox labeled 'Do Not Render Formatting'. For attributes which contain a lot of formatting such as embedded references, checking this checkbox can help the Datasheet to draw much more quickly.
Attribute Sets
The Datasheet can be configured to only show attributes belonging to certain Attribute Sets. These sets can then be opened or closed to temporarily hide attributes that aren't currently being worked on. Note that this is a workspace setting.
Choosing Attributes To Display
If enabled in the workspace, the user can select individual attributes to be displayed using the 'Choose Attributes...' option in the gadget menu.
Copying and Pasting
The Datasheet Gadget allows the user to copy objects or attributes to the clipboard, to paste Attributes from the clipboard into one or more objects, and - if the current view is set to Children or Siblings - to paste objects into the current selection.
Clicking the copy button will copy the values of any cells which are highlighted in blue to the clipboard. Multiple cells can be selected by SHIFT+Clicking or CTRL/CMD+Clicking.
The first cell in each object row contains a checkbox. These checkboxes allow the user to select objects for the purposes of either copying or pasting.
Selecting one or more of these checkboxes allows the user to add the selected objects to the Clipboard.
Comparing Values
The Datasheet can be used to highlight the differences in attribute values between the objects.
Click-and-hold any cell to select that cell as the basis for comparison; the cell will be highlighted in green, and all other cells in the same column will turn either green to indicate that their contents are the same, or red to show that the value is different.
Mouse over any red cell to display a tooltip which will show more details about the differences between your comparison basis cell and the red cell.
To cancel the cell comparison highlighting, click anywhere outside of the highlighted column.
Copy Into
When more than one cell in a column is highlighted, the 'Copy Into' icon will appear in the column header. Clicking this button will take the value of the first selected cell and paste it into the other highlighted cells of that column. However, it is important to realise that as well as the value of that first selected cell, its scope is also taken into account. Suppose the Datasheet gadget was showing five rows, and a particular column was showing four Global values and one Local value. Copy Into from one of the Global values would affect the Global values for the other four rows, but not the Local value, which would be unchanged. The Copy Into would therefore appear not to have worked, even though it had. If you are displaying more than one scope in a column, it is best to use the Scope Expander button to avoid confusion.
Bulk Edit
Similarly to Copy Into, when more than one cell in a column is highlighted, the 'Bulk Edit' icon will appear in the column header. Clicking this button opens an editor that lets you append, prepend or replace text in all the selected cells simultaneously.
Add to List...
This item is only enabled when the user has selected one or more objects. It brings up a dialog with two dropdown controls. The first shows all the top level List structures; the second shows all the child objects of the List selected in the first control. Clicking the Okay button adds copies of the selected objects into that List child object.
Add to Previous List
Like 'Add to List...', but it automatically uses the same List object as before.
Language Filter
This menu item displays a dialog allowing the user to choose which languages should be displayed for language-dependent attributes.
The dialog shows a checkbox for each language that the user has access to. All of the user's languages are selected by default.
Note that for languages which are part of a hierarchy, child languages cannot be selected without their parent languages also being selected.
Choose Attributes
Allows the user to select individual attributes (by Name or ID) to be displayed in the Datasheet.
Show Available Attributes
Allows the user to show/hide available attributes. A column will be displayed for all attributes which are Available in any of the objects in the current collection.
Show Inherited Attributes
Allows the user to show/hide any attributes where all that attribute's values are inherited from another object.
Gadget Options
Opens a dialog which allows the user to choose which of the objects' standard attributes to display.
These are attributes which provide information about an object and its current state but cannot be edited. Hiding some of these columns can help to create more space in the Datasheet for showing the attributes which the user intends to work on.
Deferred Saving
The Datasheet gadget can be expanded by clicking on the icon in its header bar. If the option "Defer saving of edited values when gadget is maximised" is set, then the expanded gadget will show Save and Cancel buttons in its top corner. In this situation, most edits that you make are not committed to the database until you click Save. This also lets you potentially cancel a large set of changes.