Has this ever happened to you? You want an agent to do something. By some combination of clear thinking and consultation with the manual and Mark Anderson’s invaluable reference file, you create said agent and it works fine. Then, two weeks later, you are in a different Tinderbox document and you want to have an agent do something similar. What exactly was the successful Rule you came up with? You go searching for the agent you created already, to use as a model.
This process would go faster if there were a way to search the content of the Queries, Rules, Edicts etc that agents are using. For example, suppose I recall that my successful agent used attribute X. Or that its rule used contains(item). If I could search for X or for that operator, my quest would go more quickly.
One way would be to have an agent search for a term you know is in the rule. For example, $Rule.contains(“red”) finds notes with a rule doing anything with the color red in my quick test file.
I’m guessing the same thing would work with searches for $OnAdd.contains(""), $AgentQuery.contains("") or $Edict.contains(""), etc.
In addition to what Brian suggested, you can open an Attribute Browser on a container or agent, and configure it to show $Edict and/or $Rule in some columns.
Since the time the Attribute Browser came into Tinderbox, which I believe was with version 6, I find it usually the quickest and easiest way to check whatever value I am interested in. Conceptually it is like a spreadsheet view of your data, with three- and four-click ability to add or remove columns for the particular values you’re interested in.
