Life sometimes can be a series of simple checkboxes. This is really bad writing. Editor

Pathagoras lets you create quite complex interviews with many selections, branches and complex decisions.

On the flip side, perhaps you need something much simpler Perhaps you just need to check off a series of boxes to select the content to arrive at the 'perfect' document for the customer or client.

Pathagoras (now) lets you have it either way..

Before we added this feature, the 'checkbox' routine could be accomplished only by a series of <<*AskOptional*!groupname!Is this statement true?*>> type commands. Don't get us wrong. This was still a simple approach. Creating 'AskOptionals' is easy and can be quite automatic. The result is fully editable. (And this process is still available.)

But Pathagoras has reduced that series of <<*AskOptional*. . . >> questions to just a group of checkboxes that your end-users can simple check on or off as appropriate. Those checkboxes are the essential equivalent of the <<*AskOptional*. . . >> command, but visually much less to have to absorb.

 

Setup:

 To create these checkboxes (a one-time event), simply list along the left margin of your editing screen the words you would otherwise use as '!groupnames! for <<*Optional* text in your document body. We provide and example below for 'Fruit Salad'

 

left side of the editing screen and pressing a convert button. Pathagoras will create the essential equivalent of the <<*AskOptional*. . .>> command, but all that will display on the screen are checkboxes with the groupname presented to the right of the box in plain text. Further, once the checkbox is created, you can change that text to any 'friendlier' text you want. The essential information is contained within the checkbox.

 

Try this by way of example. The first block below is the before (i.e., before Pathagoras has created checkboxes

You want to create an interview so that the end user can answer all the questions needed to create the document in one go 'round. Here is what this  document might look like with a 'traditional' <<*AskOptional* table:(the 'original style' interview).

 

But rather than the interview, for a simple document, you may want to add just selectable checkboxes. The appropriate options can be quickly and perhaps more intuitively selected. First, type the !groupnames! (but no exclamation marks) at the top of the document. These must match the groupnames used in the document body. This is what you should have.

Highlight the three (or 5 or 20) groupnames you want to convert to checkboxes. Activate the 'Convert' feature. (As of this writing, the convert button is located behind the Options/Optional tab, All Settings screen but we may move it, or make it more accessible. We are not illustrating it here because we want you to call us for a beta demonstration.)

After the conversion, this is what you will see. Nothing too dramatic. Only checkboxes were added. And if the groupname labels are not sufficient to advise the end-user as to what to do, you can freely add 'friendly text' to those labels, e.g.,

Here is the same setup, but using simple optional text (just curly braces) in place of robust optional text.

 

To use the document in a real world setting, simply bring it up on your editing screen via DropBox or <Alt-G> call. It should process automatically, but if because of your settings it does not, press <Alt-P>. The program will ask that the user check the appropriate boxes, answer any other <<*AskOptions, etc.>> interview questions, and then fully process the document.

Notes:

•The checkboxes and labels can be freely copied and pasted into other documents.

•One of our beta testers has created a full document of nothing but checkboxes and simply cuts and pastes selected items into selected documents.

•Labels can always be modified to suit your (or your end users') needs.