List in a Text Area?

[Luke 18]

Now that I no longer consider myself a newbie here I thought I'd seen it all... But I was wrong. Even on something so small as putting a list in a form box!

 

Apparently you can't just drop a list (such as a bunch of Keywords) in a text area box. The bot gods seem against this!

 

It's amazing to me that this functionality wouldn't have been included because the popularity of adwords and its' like... Everyone really needs to be able to throw a list of keywords into a box sometime...

 

Is this a bug, or do we have to make a loop add all of the list items one at a time into that single text area manually... Or should I take the list back to the format of a variable somehow. (Carriage returns make this seem a bit tough...)

 

Help!

-Luke

[Luke 18]

Well, since no one with the knowledge is online today I went and hacked a way to do it... Something I don't recommend for larger lists at all, and something that I feel is uber-unnecessary, such as getting to your next door neighbors' yard via a space shuttle launch and landing...

 

 

As you could see I've got a loop going where it adds a line to the field, scrapes it back up, then adds it to the field again with another list item added, then scrapes all that back up, and so on... I worry that it may be missing some since there are no pauses or wait fors, but when I add one of those the loop can take MINUTES to loop through just for 100 stinking keywords.

 

Please tell me there's a better way!

-Luke

[MiriamMB 63]

This has been on my mind lately. There should be no reason why we can't put in a list of words into a field more than one at a time or having to create crazy loopholes.

 

It should be simpler and I think Seth agrees, that is something that needs to be developed. It is now in the talks/works.

 

For now, I think this will do better for you. It's a less long version of what you did I think.

 

But this will fill the text field with everything in your list, so if you have 100 adwords you want to add, it will place all 100 adwords into the field.

 

[Luke 18]

Thank you for the code diet, Lilly!

 

I guess I'm thankful as well that I'm not losing my mind... It really does seem to me like this would be a basic, newbie-common tool around here and I thought I was going stupid not being able to figure out how to do it.

 

BTW, I haven't said welcome to you yet. It's good to have you with us. I gave Alex all kinds of trouble during my learning curve here so hopefully you'll get to benefit from his hardships.

 

Cheers,

Luke

[MiriamMB 63]

thanks for the welcome Luke

[Luke 18]

I wanted to say for posterity's sake that Lilly's fix above is excellent. It can loop even the longest lists into a text bot in a couple of seconds. Thanks again.

 

One tiny annoyance: It always seems to place a linebreak or empty line at the very top of the list... Luckily that doesn't hurt my current app but I can think of a few that this will be a stopper for... Any ideas how to circumvent?

 

Cheers,

Luke

[MiriamMB 63]

You would need to create a set command outside of the loop that sets the variable to the next list item once and only once.

 

You would then create a loop with an eval constant, place in a $list total constant, and then create the expression {1}-1. So you are telling it to take into account the first set command outside of the loop. That way, your first list item will NOT have a new line at the top. I will attach a picture explaining myself a bit better.

 

removing new line at top of list.ubot

[Manuel 1]

Hey LillyT,

 

thanks for the code, good work. Can you show me an example with an "ui open file" node as well? I don't get any errors in my bot but also no filled textarea so not quite sure what I have done wrong...

 

http://img3.imagebanana.com/img/dnhig2vo/listtextarea.jpg

[Manuel 1]

Alright, found a fix but not that what I initally wanted but hey, it works

 

Instead of using the user load the file I have predefined the path ($application_folder) and the file name as you can see in the screen below. Everything else is the same as in the screenshot in the previous posting...

 

http://img3.imagebanana.com/img/wqq1kydv/listtextareafix.jpg

[MiriamMB 63]

Hey LillyT,

 

thanks for the code, good work. Can you show me an example with an "ui open file" node as well? I don't get any errors in my bot but also no filled textarea so not quite sure what I have done wrong...

 

http://img3.imagebanana.com/img/dnhig2vo/listtextarea.jpg

 

 

I'm glad you found an alternative.

By the way, UI window is only there for UI commands (UI Text Box, UI Open File etc etc). You would not put in a fill field command in there. Nothing belongs in UI Window except for UI commands. When you put UI commands in a UI window, an option appears next to the Help button at the top called Settings, and that's how those UI commands be used.

[theninjamanz 29]

Thanks Lilly, I made a post about this same problem here:

http://ubotstudio.com/forum/index.php?/topic/4699-why-do-i-have-to-convert-to-a-variable-to-make-it-work/

 

Glad it is going to be sorted, it's a bit weird that one.

 

Just make sure when it's mended the old method/workaround doesn't break

[tooltrainer 12]

Hey Lily, thanks for posting your elegant little loop solution. I seem to have a big problem with it though, which logically seems to be a flaw in the fundamental approach. Can you help me understand why I'm seeing the following?

 

This solution will keep repeating itself over and over and over. example...

 

your list contains:

 

1

2

3

4

 

If you run it through this solution, your resulting final variable contents will be:

 

 

1

2

1

2

3

1

2

3

4

 

Since it appends the next item to itself each time recursively.

 

What am I missing?

 

Thanks!!

 

Jonathan

[tooltrainer 12]

OK something must've just been glitched with UBot... I deleted the node and recreated it identically, and this time it's working as expected. Strange!

 

Jonathan

[theninjamanz 29]

OK something must've just been glitched with UBot... I deleted the node and recreated it identically, and this time it's working as expected. Strange!

 

Jonathan

 

 

If I am going to use a value list in a field, whether all of it, or a next list item. I always set the list item to a variable. I think it is a bug but it's the only way you can get a list into a field without banging your head against the wall for an hour.

 

I also never use the fill field command,click button or any of those new ones as I always found that you'd end up getting the bot to click on two buttons...

 

I still prefer the doitonce certainty of choose by attribute change chosen attribute.

 

[Luke 18]

I still prefer the doitonce certainty of choose by attribute change chosen attribute.

 

Word. I try and I try, but quite a lot of the time I wind up doing it this way in the end.

[JohnB 255]

I wanted to say for posterity's sake that Lilly's fix above is excellent. It can loop even the longest lists into a text bot in a couple of seconds. Thanks again.

 

One tiny annoyance: It always seems to place a linebreak or empty line at the very top of the list... Luckily that doesn't hurt my current app but I can think of a few that this will be a stopper for... Any ideas how to circumvent?

 

Cheers,

Luke

 

Luke, just a thought here, but if you reverse $New Line and $Next List Item in the Loop you shouldn't get a leading blank line (but you will get a trailing blank line)

 

John

 

 

 

[Luke 18]

Luke, just a thought here, but if you reverse $New Line and $Next List Item in the Loop you shouldn't get a leading blank line (but you will get a trailing blank line)

 

Yep, beat you to that one. -But thanks for trying to help! It's appreciated.

 

I'm definitely going to be using such lists more now that I've added some of the more blackhat link building methods to my arsenal. So far this fix has allowed me to do everything I need it to.

 

Cheers,

Luke