TMSave Toolbar in Word after an Upgrade to TMW6

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When upgrading from Time Matters 5 to Time Matters 6, many users will take a wait and see attitude. They will install Time Matters 6, but NOT install Time Matters 5. This is generally not a problem with the database, since Time Matters creates a separate database during the upgrade. However, it is a problem with the TMSave Toolbar in Word which will often continue to point to the old database. The TMSave toolbar and the menu items are inserted into Word via a Startup Template. This template is loaded when Word is loads. There is a TMW5 templates and a TMW6 template. When you uninstall Time Matters 5, it removes the TMW5 template. If you keep both active, you will have a toolbar with links to both databases. Both toolbars will look identical. Depending on which you click first, you will have links to the TMW5 or the TMW6 database.

The solution is to uninstall Time Matters 5. Go into Control Panel and choose add-remove programs. Find Time Matters 5 and click on Remove. This should remove the TMW5 template. Then restart Word. There is no requirement to reinstall Time Matters. In some circumstances, the TMW6 startup template may not have been installed in the first place. In this case you have two options. One is to reinstall Time Matters, but this time choose only Word-Processor links. The other option, is to go into Workstation Setup and click on Word Processor Links or Additional Product links.

The End of Censorship in China and CIC Guidelines

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In a recent article in the New York Times magazine, it was reported that China had ended a policy of official censorship of the press.  Said the Chinese Government official. We believe that our journalists are responsible journalist who understand what is in the best interests of China.  As such, we no longer require that all news copy be reviewed by government censors prior to publication. This was exciting news … but it required a reading of the fine print to understand what had happened. And the more I read the fine print, the more I realized that something similar had happened in America, both in the public press and other forums of commercial speech.

What China has done is replace the explicit censorship with voluntary guidelines.  The guidelines focus not on what can and cannot be printed, but on more nebulous understanding of what would be in the “best interests of China”.  In the enforcement of guidelines, China has turned to the “editors and journalists” to self-police.  The editors “know” what types of articles might upset the powers that be, and then “gently” steer the reporters to topics that are “more favored” by the powers that be.  The effect is much happier journalists and much happier bureaucrats.

Gone are the “confrontations” and “adversary” posts that are the usual fairs of relations between the FIRST ESTATE and the FOURTH ESTATE.  By enlisting the FOURTH ESTATE in the process, the rivalry is reduced to the “cutting desk” of the newsroom—a much quiter and less public place.  This is true because the valuable media franchise (TV and major newspapers) are owned by corporate interests that benefit greatly from the Chinese national government.  The corporate interests have much more to loose than getting a few words edited out of a report—their very franchises are at stake.

As a reporter explains in the article—we have a pretty good idea what will be liked and not liked.  So the censors pretty much leave us alone.  It is really easy.  We feel free from close attention to our writing and the government gets out the business of editing news reports.

In America … we have moved to a “corporate-owned press”.  We do not have express censorship. But we do have owners of media conglomerates who care deeply what the current administration thinks about what they right.  This is not new.  In fact. in “Good Luck, and Good Night,” Edward R. Murrow confronted CBS management in his decision on whether to air on his show criticism of Joe McCarthy and his campaign to “out the Communists”.  Then CEO Paley ultimately permitted the series, however at the cost of eliminating Edward R. Murrow’s regular show in place of “more entertaining” and “more profitable” broadcasts.

When it comes to discussion forums, these have been traditionally free from corporate economic “constraints”.  The moderators would review posts to block out spammers (yes they exist), but generally allowed free-spirited debate.  LexisNexis in setting up the Time Matters CIC forums—and they were set up with knowledge, support and consent of the Time Matters division of Lexis Nexis—sought to encourage an atmosphere that was supportive of the Time Matters product suite.  The result was the set of guidelines (developed by a group of “Certified Independent Consultants”—one of whom did a stint as Time Matters Vice-President of Sales).

Let us look at the Guidelines:

The purpose of the LexisNexis Practice Management forum is to establish and maintain an online community where LexisNexis Time Matters, PC Law & HotDocs users and consultants can come together to share knowledge about our Practice Management applications, tailor these applications to individual needs, and develop specialized solutions.

So far so good … My emphasis.

This forum is managed and moderated solely by LexisNexis Practice Management Certified Independent Consultants (CICs) and is for the benefit of licensed LexisNexis® Practice Management customers as well as other CICs. CICs are not employees, agents, representatives, resellers, or contractors for LexisNexis®. CICs are independent professionals whose primary focus is the training and support of customers. LexisNexis® provides the infrastructure to host the forum, but does not participate in the management or moderation of the forum.

Again … the Chinese model of Censorship.  But note that CIC’s do have “resale” rights for software and would qualify as “authorized resellers” under law.  We were required to execute a contract with LexisNexis to be part of the CIC program.

There is no cost for using this forum and a support agreement is not required. However, you must be a licensed user of LexisNexis® Practice Management products and conform to the protocols of the forum to participate.

Note the focus on protocols. So far so good.

In order to establish a positive, constructive environment in which issues can be addressed, all posts are reviewed by the forum’s volunteer CIC moderators before being distributed. Message content will not be edited, augmented, or changed. Messages not in compliance with the objectives of the forum will simply not be posted to the forum by the moderators and individuals who repeatedly attempt to post such messages may have their access to the forum restricted or terminated.

Here is the “meat” of the guidelines.  Keep them positive and upbeat…. or else, rejection, and expulsion from the forum.

Generally, LexisNexis® will not be participating in the forum and participants should not rely on the forum to communicate with LexisNexis® directly. If you have ideas or feedback for LexisNexis® regarding any of the Practice Management products, please follow the procedures established for submitting ideas or comments to the appropriate business unit.

Historically, LexisNexis officials have participated in the HotDocs list, and it was an effective way of communicating ideas to HotDocs developers.  This here gives notice that such a communication method should not be assumed … and in fact, posts that attempt to tell LexisNexis what to do with its product are rejected.  The tradition of posting ideas on the forum by HotDocs developers for discussion would not be in compliance with these guidelines.

Messages should include your name, firm name, city and state, which version of the product you are running, basic operating and computer system information, plus your current status regarding working with LexisNexis® Practice Management technical support (remember, call technical support first). Anonymous or alias posts will NOT be accepted.

This is a favorite … those who don’t edit their signature block to include City and State will get rejected.  It is not enough to just put in your name and return address.

This forum is primarily for getting the most out of the current feature sets and methodologies under existing LexisNexis® Practice Management policies and market conditions.

This is a clear call to focus on the “status quo”—and not what could be done. The next paragraph drives home the point.

This forum is not for discussion on matters not directly related to the use of LexisNexis® Practice Management products. Additionally, because CICs have no control over LexisNexis® product pricing, business practices, customer service, or technical support policies, these subjects are outside the scope of this forum.

Here is the clinch … since CIC’s are powerless … these topics are outside the scope of the forum.  They are deamed “not relevant” to community support.  This was clearly a response to the Elderlaw list where there were rants about pricing of Time Matters (a quite affordable product, given its benefits) and complaints about Technical Support that rose to the level of extortion of Time Matters.  Rather than striking a balance, all these topics are expressly excluded.

This forum is not for editorializing, broad qualitative comments, customer complaints, lobbying for particular features or improvements, or otherwise trying to pressure LexisNexis® into a particular course of action.

If you had ANY doubts about whether discussion of the future direction of the product, this last one makes it clear — not relevant … and to go back to the top, such posts will be rejected and if the poster does not learn, he or she will be expelled.  My query … would discussion of a true “bug” in the product … a feature that doesn’t work … be barred under these guidelines.  More than likely.  Time Matters CICs have received calls from executives at Time Matters who have acknowledged in “bugs” in public posts.

So you can judge … are the Chinese that bad.  Perhaps, it is they who have learned the capitalist way.

Time Matters Tips Site Goes Live

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Welcome to the new Basha Systems Time Matters Tips site.  It is run by our blogging software, but will grow to operate much like any information site…

As time goes by, we will be adding Time Matters tips and tricks to our database.  Eventually, this site will become a quality resource for the Time Matters case management community.  Growing side by side with this site will be our GhostFill and HotDocs information sites, all run in a very similar manner.  If you find yourself becoming lost, the following color schemes should assist:

– grey = generic blog containing articles & document assemby topics of interest
– red = hotdocs specific tips and tricks
– navy = ghostfill specific tips and tricks
– tan = time matters specific tips and tricks

quotes in the Time Matters Tips site will appear like this

On the left side of this site, you will notice links to relevant Time Matters resources, as well as a search box, so that you can quickly find what you want from our site (if it is here of course).  If you want some light reading regarding case management ( and document assembly!), dont forget to check out our main blog which has many articles regarding the industry generally.

We hope you enjoy the new approach.

HotDocs Tips Site Goes Live

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Welcome to the new Basha Systems HotDocs Tips site.  It is run by our blogging software, but will grow to operate much like any information site…

As time goes by, we will be adding HotDocs tips and tricks to our database.  Eventually (and hopefully!), this site will become a quality resource for the HotDocs document assembly community.  Also growing at the same time will be our GhostFill and Time Matters information sites, all run in a very similar manner.  If you find yourself becoming lost, the following color schemes should assist:

– grey = generic blog containing articles & document assemby topics of interest
– red = hotdocs specific tips and tricks
– navy = ghostfill specific tips and tricks
– tan = time matters specific tips and tricks

quotes in the HotDocs Tips site will appear like this

On the left side of this site, you will notice links to relevant HotDocs resources, as well as a search box, so that you can quickly find what you want from our site (if it is here of course).  If you want some light reading regarding document assembly generally, dont forget to check out our main blog which has many articles regarding the industry generally.

We hope you enjoy the new approach.

GhostFill Tips Site Goes Live

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Welcome to the new Basha Systems GhostFill Tips site.  It is run by our blogging software, but will grow to operate much like any information site…

As time goes by, we will be adding GhostFill tips and tricks to our database.  Eventually, this site will become a quality resource for the GhostFill document assembly community.  Also coming soon will be our Time Matters and HotDocs information sites, all run in a very similar manner.  If you find yourself becoming lost, the following color schemes should assist:

– grey = generic blog containing articles & document assemby topics of interest
– red = hotdocs specific tips and tricks
– blue = ghostfill specific tips and tricks
– tan = time matters specific tips and tricks

quotes in the GhostFill Tips site will appear like this

On the left side of this site, you will notice links to relevant GhostFill resources, as well as a search box, so that you can quickly find what you want from our site (if it is here of course).  If you want some light reading regarding document assembly generally, dont forget to check out our main blog which has many articles regarding the industry generally.

We hope you enjoy the new approach.

Half-Pregnant Document Assembly Systems

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In a recent TechnoRelease, entitled “TR: Document Assembly: Let’s Be Frank.”, Roy Lasris, President of Innovative Software Products of Virginia, the developer of Pathagoras, wrote the following

Seth Rowland, a well recognized document assembly guru and multiple TechnoLawyer Contributor of the Year outlines in an article published in the September 27, 2005 TechnoFeature 13 discreet steps needed to implement an effective interview driven document assembly system. Seth implores those who are considering document assembly to find the time to implement all steps. Failure to do so will result in less than an optimal system.

I thank him for that quote. He then continued:

As a busy attorney, you may have neither the time nor the inclination to invest that kind of energy without having a guaranteed outcome. As academically accurate as he may be, Seth’s approach is simply contrary to (1) human nature and (2) the nature of most law offices. If you cannot or will not find the time to do it, then you won’t do it.

It is there that I disagree, both with his interpretation of my article, and his conclusion that real a substantial time investment in document assembly will not be rewarded by substantial multiples in profits for any law firm that makes such an investment.

Where Investment Counts

The same law firm that will calmly make a decision to to hire a $150,000 associate will agonize over a $30,000 automation project.  In the first year, the $150,000 associate will bring in a net profit of $50,000 to $100,000.  In the second year, the net profit will be about the same, for another $150,000.  The return on investment is a whopping 30-60%.  That’s if you are lucky.  Once that associate is well trained, he will want more money, or he may decide to bolt to another firm, taking his expertise (and maybe your client) with him.

By contrast, a $30,000 investment in a document assembly system, will allow your existing staff to do the same work as that $150,000 associate and maybe several other expensive associates.  The amount of money made each year on this initial investment of $30,000 would be equal to the profit on the expensive associate, for much less outlay.  The $50,000 to $100,000 would represent a 180% to 300% return on investment.  In the second year, even assuming maintenance costs, keeping the forms current of $10,000 per year, the profit would jump to 500% to 1000% on the annual investment. And even better, the “document assembly” system will not threaten to leave the firm or ever take your clients.

So why does this matter

This ROI will not happen with a simple clause based system which relies on constant and repeat judgment by an expensive associate to administer.  It will NOT happen with Pathagoras.  Pathagoras is a start.  It will happen with a carefully analyzed and scripted system that evaluates the whole document automation process, extracts the fundamentals and then scripts the whole process. When you are thinking of document assemby, be aware you get out of system what you put in.

To those users of Pathagoras, I offer this advice.  You have started down the right path.  You have started making the investment.  But you should not be wedded to your software choice.  Once you have organized your forms and information, identified all the key clauses that are worth re-using, you will be ready to take the next step.

Lessons from Mrs. Frisby – Nibble before you Bite

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Mrs. Frisby came into our life last week … She is a “fancy rat”.  Her presence as a pet in the household has forced a re-examination of my prejudices as I have put this creature, who normally skulks around in the dark (avoiding rat poison) under close observation.  I have observed rat behaviour that has lessons for document assembly …

Nibble before you Bite

A rat does not see very well … That should not surprise you since rats are nocturnal, where the sense of sight is not particularly useful.  Rather rats smell, use their whiskers, and use their teeth. Mrs. Frisby, in the morning samples my fingers with her teeth, before you she climbs onto my hand.  When she discovers it is flesh and blood (and not rat food), she climbs on board.  At first, I was concerned with this biting behavior.  But she does not bit down … rather, her teeth come into contact with my skin, and then the bit withdraws.

So … what does this matter

In looking at document assembly systems, my most successful projects have been those that started out as a nibble.  The nibble before the bite means that the user (1) understands the work involved, and (2) has not put too much time and capital at risk before ensuring that there will be a success.  The nibble also allows time to develop an understanding of the document assembly system’s method of markup.

So what is the big deal about Pathagoras

Document assembly systems are complex and require a lot of work, despite what some responders have said to my article regarding the Pathagoras system.  Would you want to hire a lawyer who went and grabbed a bunch of miscellaneous paragraphs, each time he put together an agreement for you … or would you prefer a lawyer who planned out several contingencies, and choose the options most appropriate to your situation.  Don’t get me wrong, something is better than nothing.  But don’t kid yourself that you are going to build a system that will save you “tens of hours” on a project by using Pathagoras.

Because the “hard coding decisions” are avoided in a clause based assembly system, the time you save in development is lost EACH TIME you do an assembly, because the user is (1) required to have a higher degree of knowledge of the system, and (2) the user will have to continually “repick” the appropriate clauses, and (3) because the clauses exist in isolation, out of the contractual context, changes in one clause, that need to be reflected in another portion of the agreement, simply don’t get made because the “distance” between the clauses, and the memory of the “unwritten” and “uncoded” rule rests with the trusted author.

Open Source Document Assembly

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On a recent pitch, I was asked what value-add GhostFill offered over open-source Linux based document assembly tools.  The answer was, “What tools?” There are no open-source document assembly development projects.  Complex rule-driven text manipulation is a mix of “content-management” and “programming”.  Content management deals with Word, RTF, Text, HTML, and PDF formats, traditionally handled on a Windows platform with Windows tools/

There is no inherent monopoly of Windows for document assembly.  However, recognizing the small size of the market, there has been no ground swell of open source developers.  The power of document automation tools is not in “mass printing”, but rather in delivering a fully customized experience to the user inputs.  A system should evolve over time.  The programming tool needs to be simple enough for content managers to understand, yet powerful enough to produce documents that are “ready to print” or “ready to file”.  It is this grey area between “mass production” and “custom production” where the document assembly engines excel.  However, because the “market” as opposed to the potential is so small, only those vendors with “other reasons” for entering this space have jumped in.

XML Based Document Assembly – D3 and IPManager

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Office13, aka Office 2006, now in final beta, introduces a new format WordML, a Microsoft variant of XML that includes XML objects and proprietary Word formatting extensions.  XML has the potential to revolutionize document assembly, allowing for the creation of dynamic editable templates.  D3 and Perfectus make extensive use of XML encoding in Office 2003.  They present a case study in diametrically opposite approaches to the design of document automation software.

D3 from Microsystems and Perfectus IP Manager from Perfectus Solutions approach document assembly from opposite ends of the spectrum.

IP Manager has a sophisticated application builder with controls for laying out web-based interviews in a powerful GUI while XML tagging a family of templates.  It allows the family of templates to be “packaged” and shipped.  The system is modular with reusable components and definitions.  From a hosted server, multiple offices can access the document sets.  The system can be blended into a DocsOpen or WebDocs solutions with full workflow, or can manage its own resulting documents and answer sets.

D3, by contrast, merges SQL server database with Word objects that are “parsed” and uploaded into the database.  D3 is a powerful clause manager and document modeller.  It allows the users to pick and choose among clauses, and merge the clauses into a finished and styled product.  While a “document form” can be “imported” from another system, the best way to work with D3 is on-site.  When it comes to variables, the interview is relegated to a Side-bar with one variable displayed at a time.

The key difference really is the target.  D3 is designed for the “trusted user” who is likely an attorney, giving him or her access within a few strokes to “data sources” in their network (Outlook, Billing, Client Lists etc.) and to a comprehensive and structured clause bank.  The user chooses the “objects” and brings them into the document, then runs a filler which looks for unanswered variable fields.  Because the fields, generally with a 1 to 1 mapping (no collections), are XML encoded, the trusted user can change the “document” and then have the fields refresh based on changed data.

IP Manager is targeted towards the “untrusted user”.  Like other document assembly systems, HotDocs, GhostFill, and to an extent DealBuilder, the “templates” are locked in a developer controlled application.  The developer – knowledge worker has determined what provisions are appropriate based on the appropriate response to a series of questionst, grouped into pages or dialogs in a structured interview.  The focus is on the questions, not the words of the documents.  The “untrusted user” is typically found in a corporate environment where a corporate counsel is deploying standard forms across a disparate sales force.

Basha Systems Document Assembly Blog Ready for Syndication and HotDocs 2006

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We have been busy restructuring all our website in the Basha Systems family: Bashasys.net, our client new client portal, Bashasys.com, our main consulting site, Bashasys.org our Fogbugz project tracking site, store.bashasys.com, our store.  There are two other sites almost ready to go live to support our Nebraska Probate System V and a new system for Building Inspectors. With these items out of the way, I am ready to return to commenting on developments in Document Assembly.  In particular, HotDocs 2006 is about to go into Full Beta. I have gathered posted by chief architect of HotDocs Marshall Morrise to the public HotDocs list.  When the product comes out of beta and is released, come back for a discussion of these innovative new features.

There has been discussion on the HotDocs List of several potential features in the HotDocs 2005 Beta.  I will confine my comments to posts from Marshall Morrise, the chief architect of HotDocs to the HotDocs ListServer.  These posts reveal some major new features under the hood that will catapault HotDocs to the lead as a full fledged document assembly development platform.

February 9, 2006: Feature Set

All new features we have discussed on the list over the past several months (including the one referred to below) are being implemented in HotDocs 2006. The one exception is support for WordPerfect X3, which has been added to HotDocs 2005 SP3 (available soon). The reason we put this into a 2005 version is that WordPerfect X3 is already out and we don’t feel we can expect customers who upgrade to it to wait until HotDocs 2006 comes out in June.

Feb. 9, 2006: Access macros from an non-loaded template

The discussion regarding macros stored in a secondary template had to do with HotDocs 2006. We have implemented the feature we discussed. A new component file property allows you to specify a Word .dot file that contains PLAY macros. The .dot file must be in the same folder as the template that includes the PLAY instruction. Thus, if you distribute a template set where one or more of the templates includes a PLAY instruction, instead of requiring users to copy the PLAY macros into normal.dot, or putting them in a template that must be copied to the Word Startup folder, you can simply include the .dot with the template set.

January 20, 2006: Pretty Templates

In this example, variable titles have been substituted for variable names and square brackets have been substituted for IF/END IF pairs. Color would be used to identify variables and the brackets for IF instructions (which I can’t show here because the list server just strips color out). Footnotes would be used to show the actual IF logic. Other things would be done as well.

December 13, 2005: Required Fields

Because the HotDocs 2005 Server interface mimics the desktop interface, it does not include asterisks for required fields. Instead, the fact that a required field is not answered is indicated by a red asterisk in the interview outline. That said, requests for the asterisks have been frequent enough that both the desktop and server interfaces for HotDocs 2006 will include a user option to show red asterisks at the left side of prompts for required fields.

November 23, 2005: Update Table of Contents and Indexes in Word

In HotDocs 2006 we’ve added a component file option titled “Update table of contents and index after assembly”. If you turn this on, HotDocs will automatically update the TOC and indexes so you don’t have to PLAY a macro to do it.

November 17, 2005: Inserting an OR in a document based on rules

At the moment, the only way to accomplish what you are asking about is to write some computations that figure out which lines get included in the document. Someone on the list can probably help you out with an approach. For everyone’s information, a feature that will make this very easy (no computations involved) will be included in HotDocs 2006.

November 2, 2005: Master Component File – But Independent Document Interviews

Just so you know, HotDocs 2006 will allow you to specify a different interview component for each template that points to a shared component file. While this doesn’t address all of the issues raised regarding using shared component files, it does address the issue Bart mentions immediately below.

October 19, 2005: Unique Values in a Multiple Choice Variable

I have received a request to produce a function that will filter out unique responses from a repeated multiple choice variable.  To get this list of unique selections across the repeated set of answers, I have to do quite a bit of scripting, including setting a counter, copying over options from the Favorite Desserts variable to a temporary collection variable, using a WHILE to look through the collection variable to make sure I don’t duplicate a choice, etc.

October 6, 2005: Text Manipulation Functions

We have discussed the addition of some built-in text manipulation functions to HotDocs to make it easier to manipulate text answers, particularly multi-line answers. There have been a number of suggestions, including “normalizing” multiline text to make it single-line, stripping off white space, etc.

After reviewing the emails and suggestions offered, we proposed to create the following built-in text manipulation functions:

STRIP(, , , )

text variable = any text variable
characters = characters to be stripped off
frombeginning = TRUE if characters to be stripped from the beginning of the text
fromend = TRUE if characters to be stripped from the end of the text

Characters to be stripped off can include the following “pseudo-codes”:

^t for a tab
^s for a hard space
^p for a paragraph mark/hard return
^w for any white space

etc. (rather like what you can do with Find and Replace in Word)

REPLACE(, , , )

text variable = any text variable
searchfor = character string
replacewith = character string
all = TRUE to replace all occurrences of with instead of just the first one

Searchfor and replacewith can include the same pseudo-codes shown for STRIP above.

SPACE()

Yields the answer plus a space if the text variable is answered or an “answered nothing” otherwise.

Examples of use:

SET MultiLineAddress TO STRIP(MultiLineAddress, “^w”, TRUE, TRUE)

Strips white space from the beginning and end of a multi-line address.

SET OneLineAddress TO REPLACE(MultiLineAddress, “^p”, “, “)

Replaces returns in the multi-line address with a comma and a space to form a single line address.

With SPACE, instead of a computation containing:

ClientFirstName + “ “
IF ANSWERED(ClientMiddleName)
RESULT + ClientMiddleName + “ “
END IF
RESULT + ClientLastName

you could use:

ClientFirstName + “ “ + SPACE(ClientMiddleName) + ClientLastName

October 6, 2005: Bold, Italics and Underline in Computations and List Punctuation

Issue

1. Quite a number of developers have requested a way to identify bold, underscore, and italics in text produced by computations for insertion into a document.

2. A similar number of developers have requested a way to get bold, underscore, and italics into additional text or prompt text in a dialog.

3. A smaller, but still meaningful number of developers have requested a way to get “a, b, and c” style punctuation into a document without using a repeat. For example, if I want to list a client, the client’s spouse, and their children as “My family consists of myself, my spouse Sam Jones, my son Tim Jones, and my daughter Sue Jones”, where the children come from a repeated dialog but the parents do not, I have to do some tricky scripting.

Proposed Solution

We propose to implement a new kind of field that can be inserted into text. The field will contain something I’ll call a “dot command”. Here are some
examples (using single angle brackets in place of chevrons):

In a computation script:

SET Variable TO “Please be <.b>very<.eb> careful when moving the cannister.”

The “.b” and “.eb” commands represent bold and end bold respectively. When this text is merged into a document, or when it is displayed in a dialog, the visible dot commands will be replaced by actual bolding of the word “very”.

Similar commands would be implemented for italics (.i) and underscore (.u).

It might be good if we used longer words for the dot commands, like “.begin bold” and “.end bold”. These would be easier to recognize in the text. The downside is, they’re long.

It might be good if we were to use some other character to “introduce” the new commands. We need to use something that has never been allowed as a valid character to being a HotDocs component name. One suggested character has been the backslash. We (I) like periods because they’re fairly unobtrusive.

QUESTION 1: How do you feel about this scheme of allowing visible fields in text that will be translated into the “real thing” in documents or dialogs? If you don’t care for it, do you have other suggestions?

QUESTION 2: Do periods (dots) work for you, or do you think some other character would be better?

QUESTION 3: Are you OK with short, mnemonics (like “.b” and “.be”) or do you prefer longer commands (like “.begin bold” and “.end bold”)?

In addition to dot commands for specifying bold, underscore, and italics, we’ve considered commands like:

<.an> inserts “a” or “an” depending on the word that follows
<.> inserts a period, but only if no punctuation precedes the dot command (useful when inserting a sentence typed by the user as an answer)
<.lq> inserts a curly left quote
<.rq> inserts a curly right quote

There are more things we’ve thought of (curly apostrophes, other conditional punctuation, etc.)

QUESTION 4: Are there other commands of this sort you’d like to see implemented? If so, please describe them.

As the solution to non-repeated list punctuation, we propose to implement:

<.p “format”> identifies the beginning of a punctuated list and gives the format
<.p> identifies the spot where punctuation characters should be inserted
<.pe> identifies the end of the punctuated list

Using the family example described above, you could have something like:

<.p “a, b, and c”>My family consists of myself<.p>my spouse <.p>my Name><.p><.pe>.

which would be assembled as

My family consists of myself, my spouse Sam Jones, my son Tim Jones, and my daughter Sue Jones.

QUESTION: Will this be useful to you?

I should mention that we expect to do two things:

1. Create an interface for inserting dot commands (so you don’t have to remember them).
2. Make it possible to hide dot commands so users who preview your templates won’t see them.