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Zoot to Tinderbox data exchange
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Feb 17, 2010 at 01:01 PM
In another topic, Franz asked if it is possible to enter data plus meta data in Zoot and move it to Tinderbox? And have Tinderbox use the meta data as attributes?
The answer yes with two very big qualifications. I have a database of about 100 entries in Zoot—the catalog of books published by the agency I work for. I have the database set up to show me specific data in the grid: title, price, author, ISBN, etc… Exporting this from Zoot to a CSV format is easy (by the way, I’m talking about Zoot 5… I haven’t moved my information to Zoot 6 yet) using the file export wizard, which allowed me to select which fields I wanted to include in the export. I also included in the export the field called “body” which pulls the entire note text out. As you probably know about Zoot, you can set up the grid with delimited fields that it pulls from the body of the note. So, when you include the “body” field in the export you get a duplication of information with which ever other fields you export. Anyway, this all worked well, and I could open this CSV file in Excel on my PC and in Numbers on my MacBook.
However, when I copied the table from numbers and tried to paste it into Tinderbox, I got a single blank note. When I tried copying all the columns from the spreadsheet excluding the one with the “body” text, the process worked just fine. I then experimented by editing the “body” field to be just one single paragraph and tried again. This time I was able to include the “body” field, so it looks to me as if Tinderbox does not know what to do with the data that has multiple hard returns in a single field. This issue probably makes the whole notion of this kind of exchange of data with Zoot a moot point, unless all you want is Zoot’s meta data.*
The other issue is I’m not sure how to effectively move data from Tinderbox to Zoot. I imagine there is a way, but one of the biggest issues I have with Tinderbox is the complexity of the export function. It comes with a few export templates, and if all you need is these, no problem. But if you want to do anything more complex, you have to build your own templates with the (in my view) arcane language of Tinderbox.
Steve
*Another question I haven’t had a chance to try to answer yet is if there is a way to bring the “body” text into the note field of Tinderbox, or is it set up to only try to create an attribute with the body text? I’ll play around with this a little more and report back later.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Feb 17, 2010 at 06:47 PM
As a follow-up, there is an attribute in Tinderbox called “Text.” In the CSV file exported from Zoot, if you change the heading of the column called “Body” to “Text,” Tinderbox will import the text from that column into the note area for each item imported. Reminder: This does not appear to work if the text in the “Body/Text” column is in more than one paragraph.
Steve
Posted by Franz Grieser
Feb 17, 2010 at 10:20 PM
Thanks, Steve.
Most of the notes I plan to manage with TB will consist of more than one paragraph.
As soon as I have my Mac Mini, I will will experiment with other import formats and other data sources. I’ll let you know if I find a convenient way.
Franz
Posted by eastgate
Feb 19, 2010 at 02:50 PM
Does Zoot export any other formats?
If not, why not email me a small sample export from Zoot; perhaps we can make this simpler.
Posted by eastgate
Feb 19, 2010 at 02:53 PM
On Tinderbox -> Zoot:
The export language is a lot less forbidding than it might appear. Again, we need to know what Zoot wants to import; once you know that, it’s usually easy to make a Tinderbox export template. We can help, and there are lots of helpful people at the Tinderbox Forum.