Tinderbox Training Video 17 - Working with Export Templates Part 1

Tinderbox Training Video - Working with Export Templates Part 1

Level Fundamental
Published Date 1/7/21
Tags Tinderbox, aTbRef, 4Cs of Knowledge Exchange, Export Code, Publishing
Video Length 11:43
Video URL Tinderbox Training - Working with Export Templates Part 1 - YouTube
Example File TBX - L Working with Export Templates Part 1.tbx (96.8 KB)
Revision 1
TBX Version 8.9
Instructor Michael Becker
Forum Post URL

In this lesson, at a high-level, we take a look at how to use export code and HTML templates. Woking with export code and HTML templates is fundamental to your Tinderbox experience, as it is one of the primary ways you get your work out of Tinderbox, i.e. are able to contribute your efforts to the world.†

†Remember: Contribution is the 4th C in 4Cs of Meaning & Knowledge Making, a process that comes to life in a transformative way through and with Tinderbox.

TBX - L Working with Export Templates Part 1

Reference materials

1 Like

Great to see 1080p videos ! Your voice is much better and louder now .

Thanks for the feedback. Nice to know things are improving. So many new learnings in this process, not just Tinderbox, but video production (picture and audio), course prioritization and development, module management, YouTube promotion, etc. :slight_smile: A lot of little details that I’ve never been exposed to before.

I’m trying to replicate this process so i can learn how to get stuff out TBX. So far I’ve been unable to. I’ve started with a new file, created a couple of notes, nested one within the other - creating note 1 as a container - and brought in the HTML template. I then do what Michael does at timestamp 2:55 and look at the text pane and then preview pane, but I do not see the text for both notes, only note 1 which contains note 2. I downloaded the TBX file and yes when I open it, it works as per the video. I’ve even tried copying the content of that file to a new file I created but I still can’t re-create that situation whereby the preview pane shows the text for the top note [i.e the container] and all its children i.e the notes within the container. Am I doing something stupid or is this something to do with the new version - I am using vers 9.5 and note that the text pane selector is now different - HTML replaced with Export. Whether that is the issue I do not know.

Thanks for the videos by the way - despite this problem they are very helpful and I am making progress.

1 Like

This is actually consistent. The template used ‘HTML’ includes—by design—the content of all its descendants. Here at 2:59 in the video:

AS you don’t get this with nested notes, ensure you are using the built-in ‘HTML’ template and note the built-in ‘HTML single note’ template. The latter doesn’t include content from child notes.

If still stuck why not post a small demo file (you can upload TBX files) that shows the problem? Sometimes issues are unintentional misconfigurations that are hard to spot in the textual description but easily spotted in an open TBX document.

When you click on the “Preview” pane, are you not seeing the content this is shown in the HTML?

When I run into situations like this, the first thing I do to check with Template TBX is actually using.

For the particular note in question, right might have adopted the “Preview” template.

Try changing to to the HTML Preview.

To get this, click ⌘+1 to open the inspector and then click on the Export Inspector.

Thank you both. Yep, when I looked at the export selector it was showing the preview template. Going through the release notes I now know that the ‘Export Pane’ is the rewording of what was once the ‘HTML Pane.’ - so that was not the problem. I can now replicate what was in the video and learnt a few things along the way.

Thank you both again for such quick and helpful responses.

2 Likes

@drees, you’re welcome. Taking a big leap ahead, check out this thread: Attempting to create a mileage log - #46 by satikusala. You’ll learn a ton from this, including the recent discussion on leveraging offsets to manage notes (e.g., create, delete, update) and pull values from attributes anywhere within your file.