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Author Topic: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section  (Read 32549 times)

mouser

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Welcome to the discussion section for the Tree Form Documents website (http://www.tfdocs.com).

This is a website that was built to be an online version of my windows desktop application known as "The Form Letter Machine" (discuss the desktop app here).



As a brief introduction:  The tfdocs.com web service provides a way for people to create documents by mixing and matching different terms and sections.

Screenshot:
tfdocs.png

Visite website:

Good sample TF doc that:

Site changelog:
« Last Edit: November 17, 2009, 09:53 AM by mouser »

Paul Keith

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2009, 11:47 AM »
How do you import your TFLM files?

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2009, 11:59 AM »
you know i didn't even think about that, but it's a great idea.. what i will do is add an XML Export feature to a new release of the form letter machine desktop app; then you can use those.

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2009, 01:16 PM »
Let me talk a little bit about the differences between the desktop application and web version.

  • Both share the same basic idea: You design a hierarchical tree-like structure of options, which are used to assemble an output document by mixing and matching sections.
  • The web version is much more focused on letting people create tree-form document definitions that are meant to be shared and used by others; it therefor supports wiki-like shared editing of group treeform documents, a discussion thread for each document, document tag cloud, etc.
  • Unlike the desktop application, the web version has no graphical nice user interface for creating the tree-form definitions; the web version uses a plain text xml definition that the author provides.
  • The web version supports more flexible formatting of output, including things like bolding, italics, section headers, web links, and glossary/mouseover notes.
  • The web version supports multiple output containers -- useful if you want to divide up your output document into things like a main body, an appendix, an area for private notes, etc.
  • The web version has more robust support for free-form input variables; it knows which input variables are needed and when, and let's the user see clearly when a variable is needed.
  • The web version has some nice effects to help you see when text blocks are being added/removed/changed.
  • The desktop version support quick customization of the text of any section without editing the tree definition; not so with the web version.
  • The web version will soon support PDF export and emailing.
  • The web version can be easily expanded to support more powerful conditional blocks and expressions.
  • The web version supports hover-over tips on tree items and selected document text.

The easiest way to get a feel for the web version is to check out a sample form and click the "View XML Source" button -- that will show you the xml definition of the sample tree-form document, so you can get an idea of the kinds of things you can do.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2009, 01:19 PM by mouser »

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2009, 01:28 PM »
My next step will be to create some documentation on the tree form xml syntax.

JavaJones

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2009, 01:45 PM »
Looking great. I really like how responsive and clear the UI is, with color-coding, nifty AJAX effects, etc. This bodes well my friend. ;)

- Oshyan

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2009, 05:33 PM »
Just a heads up: I'm working on documentation now and I've changed the tree syntax slightly since my initial post, in order to make it easier to define a formal xml dtd definition of the syntax.

icekin

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2009, 08:40 AM »
Since this was made in Drupal, can I know which modules you used?

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2009, 09:14 AM »
Since this was made in Drupal, can I know which modules you used?

absolutely -- in fact let me put together a longer write up of all the modules, javascript libraries, etc. that i used in the entire site.  credit where credit is due:

http://www.tfdocs.co...form-machine-website
« Last Edit: November 07, 2009, 10:57 AM by mouser »

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2009, 04:52 AM »
How do you import your TFLM files?

I have finished adding an XML export function to the desktop TFLM; the exported xml files can be pasted as-is right into tfdocs.com online.  This has the added benefit of providing a safe format for exporting your TFLM trees should you want to work with the content in another program.  Importing is not yet available.

The latest version of TFLM which supports xml exporting is now available for download: https://www.donation...erMachine/index.html

« Last Edit: November 09, 2009, 08:28 PM by mouser »

psionics

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2011, 02:39 PM »
exactly what i am coding(unfinished) and looking for! :D

mouser

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Re: Welcome to the tfdocs.com (Tree Form Documents) discussion section
« Reply #11 on: April 06, 2011, 10:58 AM »
tfdocs is currently offline; it will be coming back this month and be much easier to use to make simple document templates.

Contro

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I will be awaiting for the answers in the cloud.

 :P