Special Column Names and Values
Certain strings will be interpreted specially by Multideck when they occur as the name of a column, or as the value (or part of the value) of a field in a column. These strings always begin with a hash character #. For now, only a few such names are recognized, but we recommend avoiding the use of # as the first character of your own column names, to leave room for future Multideck features.Note that items of type Literal are never interpreted specially. The special values feature applies only to items of other types.
Special Column Names
#countIf your content includes a column titled #count then each field in that column should contain a positive integer. Multideck will print that many copies of that row's card. For example, if you want 10 identical copies of a certain card, you would put only one row describing the card in your content, and enter 10 in the #count column for that card.
If there is no column titled #count, then the count is assumed to be 1.
#repeat
The #repeat feature
works exactly like the #count feature,
except that the copies it creates may be modified by Rotors.
Learn more about Rotors.
Learn more about Series, #repeat, Rotors, and #count: How They Work Together.
#PrintSelected
If your content includes a column titled #PrintSelected
then rows in the content that do not have a value of
#printme in that column
will not be printed, exported, or previewed.
Multideck will simply behave as if those rows did not exist.
To print all cards again, you can (a) remove the entire column, (b) fill in every row with #printme, or (c) rename the column to almost anything else, such as PrintSelected without the leading # character.
#iscopy
This special column name is used internally by Multideck.
Do not use it for your own columns.
#-anything
Column names that begin with #- never produce
'Unused Column' warnings.
They are not otherwise different from ordinary column names.
Use the #- prefix
to avoid seeing warnings for columns that you do not intend to use
in your layouts.
Special Column Names in the Layout Editor
These strings can be used in the "Content" combo box in the Layout Editor. Normally, the Content combo box should contain the name of a column from your content. But you may use a "special column name" instead of an actual column name, to get the effects described below. (These specials are not really column names at all, but they go in the Content combo box which usually does contain a column name.)Note: These strings should not appear as actual column titles in your content.
#if
A Content combo box value of the form
#if{column-name}then{result}
will examine the value of the field in column column-name, and return a result that is used as the display value for the item.
If the referenced field's value is empty, then result will be empty. When the referenced field's value is not empty, if result has the form ..column-name then the value of that field is returned; else the literal string result is returned.
Example: Suppose the item type is Image. Then this value in the Content combo box:
#if{VPs}then{vpImage.png}
will display the image from the file vpImage.png when the field VPs is not empty; if it is empty, no image is displayed.
If instead the Content combo box value is:
#if{VPs}then{..vpImage}
then when VPs is not empty, the value found in field vpImage is used as the result.
(Note: This feature may be developed into a more flexible conditional-expression mechanism in the future.)
#lit:
A Content combo box value that begins with the five characters
#lit:
will strip those characters from the front of the name,
and use the remainder of the name for the value.
The source content will be referenced
only if the string contains markup that refers to actual content columns.
For example, this value references
a column named 'Title'
which would be read from the content:
#lit:You may play {..Title} whenever you are attacked.
If the value of the Title field for a card is "Escape", then the output for that card would be:
You may play Escape whenever you are attacked.
#image:filename
If the item's type is Image
and its Content combo box value begins with the string
#
#empty
A Content combo box value of #empty
specifies that the field contains no value.
(It is functionally equivalant to specifying
#lit: with no following text.)
This is useful for items used simply as shapes:
set a background color and corner radius
to create a colored square, rectangle, oval, or circle
that shows no content. A long, thin item like this
makes a good dividing line graphic.