Task Settings
Each job has one associated template and many associated tasks. Each task handles a field tag found in the template. When the template is specified or its path edited, Mergemill will automatically scan it and update the tasks associated with the job.
After scanning the template, Mergemill will create a task for each new field tag found. If there are tasks with field tags not found in the template, they will be marked with 'X: ' before the field tag name to indicate that they are obsolete. It is up to you whether to keep such tasks or delete them. These tasks will simply be ignored when you run the job. If you edit the template so that the field tags it contains match those of the obsolete tasks again, the tasks will be reactivated with their 'X: ' marks removed. No new tasks will be added in this case.
To delete a task, click in its Task Name cell on the Tasks page to place the insertion cursor there, and click the Delete Task button.
You can double click on any task row to access the Task Edit Form shown above. Here are the elements in the Task Edit Form and how they should be used to set up tasks:
Task Name |
Use this to quickly identify what the task does. |
Field Tag |
To prevent errors in typing the data element marker pair into your source text or source file, you can click on the Field Tag name or press [Ctrl/Command-B] to put the marker pair for the current field tag onto the clipboard. Mergemill automatically puts 'xxx' in-between the marker pair. You can then paste it into your source text or source file. Once pasted, you can quickly double-click the 'xxx' and start typing to replace it with your actual content. |
Content Source |
This is an important setting. It specifies where to get the contents for the current Field Tag. There are 4 options: |
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01: Included Source Text -- The contents are contained in the Source Text field. |
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02: Source File -- The contents are to be obtained from an external text file. The Source Text box is now renamed Source File, and you may use the Get Path button on its right to specify the file path. |
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03: Source Folder -- The contents are to be obtained from files in the Source Folder specified in the parent job. |
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04: Generated Text -- The values for the field tag are to be automatically generated. Components for those values are defined by the group of Auto Text fields in the form. Choices for the components are very similar to those for the Output Filename in the parent job settings. |
DB Data Column No |
If your tab-separated 'DB_' format source files do not have field heading in their first row, you need to specify the column number here for the tag/task, so that the correct data elements in the source files are obtained. |
Loop Break Size |
This sets the number of rows in a long list for each page in generating a multi-page set. If the Loop ID is zero, meaning that the field is NOT in a loop, Mergemill will not allow you to set this value. If you set conflicting Loop Break Sizes for fields in the same loop, the smallest non-zero value will be used. |
Loop Break Key |
This designates the current field to be the break control key of the loop it belongs. The loop will break whenever value of the field content changes. |
Preprocessing |
Three sets of Find & Replace functions are provided for you to preprocess the content before merging. If a Replace... entry is not empty, all occurrences of it will be replaced with the ...with entry in each data element for the field tag. If an ASCII String checkbox is marked, the corresponding text entry is interpreted as a string of ASCII codes separated by ';'. There is an important application for FileMaker Pro users. FMPro turns all line breaks into Vertical Tabs (ASCII code 11) as it exports your text into Merge or tab-separated format files. If you want to restore the Carriage Returns in your content, you enter '11' into Replace... and '13;10' (Windows) or '13' (MacOS) into ...with, and mark both corresponding ASCII String checkboxes. |
Web Line Breaks |
This option should be selected if your plain text contents are to be displayed on web pages. It instructs Mergemill to preserve the look of the plain text line breaks on the web pages. Mergemill will then enclose your paragraphs by the <p> and </p> HTML tags, and insert the <br /> tag at single line breaks in your source text. Please note: |
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This preprocessing is done last. |
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Mergemill ignores the presence of tags already in your source text. So if you turn on this option, your source data elements should not contain the heading tags, <h1> to <h6>, or paragraph tags. Or, if you want to mark some text block in your source text as headings using the heading tags, you need to mark other text blocks as paragraphs as well, and turn this option off. To learn more about HTML tags, please click here. |
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If you want to add extra space between paragraphs on the web page, you need to insert an invisible paragraph in the source text by typing at least a space after two returns from the preceding paragraph, and then two returns before the next paragraph. Otherwise, a string of consecutive returns, no matter how many, will be treated just as a single paragraph break. |
Trim Invisibles |
Turn this option ON if you want Mergemill to trim off invisible characters, such as line feed, return or space, from both ends of each data element before merging. |
A Special Trick
If you specify a task to get contents from automatically generated text (i.e. option 04: Generated Text) and you have included 02: Source Filename or 10: Source File Extension in its components, it's important to know that those data come only from the files in the source folder. Values for the two components are obvious if you use one source file for each run of the job. If, however, you specify a source folder containing many files, select the As Single Source option, specify for a tag IN A LOOP to contain generated text which includes either the source file name or extension, THEN the whole list of file names and extensions will be used for the loop, one pair for each iteration. This feature allows you to easily generate index web pages from a folder of files.
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