Export to txt-Import into Excel-some minor flaws

[dcwul62]

Noticed that when importing the ExportedClips.txt file into Excel, in column 'A' some date-time settings show up and sometimes something else.

Looks like this

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Now what is listed there, like 2013-08-29 03:29:32.598  it does not exist in the CHS database.
Same for the other examples.

They are not in  2274 or 2273 (or 3156/3155, 3221/3220)

It is not a big thing, I can delete it manually.

There may be roughly 7-8 such entries in the entire list.

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[mouser]

I need some more information.

I've just done some checking into this, and it appears, to the best i can tell, that CHS *IS* properly writing the csv file, and your import process is not parsing it correctly.

It seems to me, from the screenshots, that the import process you are using is not properly dealing with embedded linebreaks.

But here is how a CSV with embedded linebreaks should be handled, and it seems consistence with CHS:
http://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/CSV/CSV01.htm

I can't believe the excel isn't capable of proper csv importing -- but maybe there are multiple options for importing CSV files are you are just choosing an unusual option?

OR, I could be misreading how embedded newlines are supposed to be represented in a CSV file.

[mouser]

Nevermind, i'm writing a whole new export function and i can test on excel and see it's choking on some formats.
I'm fixing.

[mouser]

Ok please try the new beta with completely rewritten CSV export.
Also, see the Backup/Maintenance tab in options for some new csv export options.

http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1514.0

[mouser]

Apparently, if the filename has a txt extension, you get a different import wizard which looks like it can do csv but not really.  So half the fix was renaming the file to .csv extension.

One thing I've noted is that I was able to export a clip with = near the beginning of the cliptext, and it freaked out excel and caused that one row to import wrong.  This seems to be excel making an ass of itself and there's little i can do to fix it.

If you figure out a way for me to tell excel to not be so stupid, please let me know.

Good work bill gates and the Excel team -- never content to do things the standard way

[mouser]

By the way, one of the new options for exporting is that you can specify a smaller number of fields to export -- should make it a bit easier to export just what you need.

If someone can suggest some common sets of fields that one might want to export, i can put some sample lists available as a dropdown to make it easy to switch between common choices.

[dcwul62]

Hi Mouser
How?
How to set the number of fields?
Database maintenance exports all
File -> Export Listed Clips

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However, the exported text -file shows all fields.
Index,UserKeywords,ClipType,ParentId,ParentGroup,OtherGroups,Application,FullApplicationPath,
WindowTitle,Title,Description,ImageIndex,ExcerptText,ClipText,CreationDateTime,ModificationDateTime,
etc.etc.

Or am I mixing things up now?
Very well possible... 

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[mouser]

Go to the Backup/Maintenance tab.
There you can specify a list of which fields to export.

[dcwul62]

Eh ... sorry .. but where?

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[mouser]

You don't have the latest version.  This sometimes happens when I upload a new version too soon -- the downloads are still serving the previous version.

The installer should say 2.22.02.  If it still says 2.22.01 then its not the new version.

[dcwul62]

Right, I was on 2.22.01 
tried out exporting with this
ExcerptText,ClipText,CreationDateTime

I don't know ... did you try it out yourself?

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[mouser]

Works here.  Not for you?

[dcwul62]

I am afraid not..
looks a bit like this ..


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did you try to export selected clips? (not the entire database)

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[mouser]

It always exports the clips in the current view (selected group/filter), not just selected clips.  We can talk about that later.

You're loading this csv into excel without changing the file extension, right?  And you're only showing one clip -- can you tell me if your saying that ALL exported clips are coming in wrong, or is it just one or two?

If you look at the csv file in a text editor, can you see what's wrong?

[dcwul62]

Looks pretty much the same.
I can select -say- 4 clips, then file export selected clips, the entire database is exported.
In the excelsheet you can see it goes up to close 90.000  rows.

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[mouser]

I will add a feature to export only selected clips.  But let's focus on the basic export functionality first.

[mouser]

Anyone else care to report on the new export function?
If your csv is importing with some clips not being parsed, can you see if you can identify why?

[dcwul62]

Just gave it a try again.
Copied a few things from the donationcoder site.
Exported it to .csv (90.000+ lines of text)








Export Settings


Exported


In a text-editor


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