Display Rich Text fields in a view

Display Rich Text fields in a view 2 January 2001

Ever wanted to show part of a Rich Text field in the column of a view. I'll bet my grandma that you have. Well this is possibly the easiest/only way; I can't believe I didn't know about this simple @Function sooner !!!

@Abstract lets you create a plain text summary of a rich text field. Superb. Using this function to compute the value of a plain text field, stored in the document, means that the data can be displayed in views. What a blessing. I'm going to use this all the time now ;-) You can see it in action by using the search on this site.

First thing to do is to create a Computed field, of type Text, and call it something like "Abstract". The formula for this will be somthing like :

@If(@IsAvailable(name_of_the_rt_field); @Abstract( [Abbrev]; 200; ""; "name_of_the_rt_field");"" ) *

This example will take the first two hundred characters of the named rich text field and abbreviate its content. This can then be displayed in views as a kind of intro to the document. Cool hey !?

* The help database will give you more detail on the powerful features of this function

Feedback

- Alan Hurt
- Mon 8 Jan 2001
This is really good...
Using @Abstract is an excellent way of developing a summary to return in a search view...giving the user something familiar like they would get with a standard internet search on Yahoo, etc...

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- Vei Chong
- Mon 8 Jan 2001
What if...?
What if there's an attachment in the rich text field? What would be stored/displayed in the the "abstract" field then?

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1. - Jake Howlett
  - Mon 8 Jan 2001
  There is only one way to find out!
  
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  1. - Alexander Schuth
    - Thu 22 Feb 2001
    ...done that...
    ...it gives back the name of the field, i.e. name_of_the_rt_field .
    Hmh. What's the best way to get attached graphics displayed in a view? That's what I'm trying to do...
    Either pasted images or attached files (.gif, .jpg, .tif) or image ressources...
    Any clue?
    
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    1. - Jake
      - Thu 22 Feb 2001
      Most definitely attached
      Can't think how you'd go about showing pasted images in a view!
      To do it with attachments use one of the following formalae in your column (view needs to be treated as HTML). This assumes you don't know the name of the attachment and that there is only one (otherwise an alternate solutions can be used)
      "<img src=\"" + @Text(@DocumentUniqueID) + "/$file/" + @AttachmentsNames + "\" alt=\"img\" />"
      This assumes that the view is on a $$ViewTemplate which means that it is at the same level of the database structure as view and links can be generated from that level onward*. i.e. The following URL:
      "DocumentID/$file/image.gif"
      is the same as:
      /dir/db.nsf/view/DocumentID/$file/image.gif"
      when the link itself is already at the level of the view.
      *Otherwise you will have to "hard-code" the full path in the view which can lead to problems with indexes if the DB moves.
      HTH Jake Howlett -CodeStore
      
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      1. Alexander Schuth
        
        Fri 23 Feb 2001
        
        Attached image vs. Image Ressource
        Thanks, Jake, I'll try that.
        What I want to create is a browser-compatible app for storing images. Now, there are two places where images can be put in Domino - either attached or pasted in a Rich Text Field, or as an Image Ressource.
        What benefit could I gain from storing my images as Image Ressources?
        
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        brandon zylstra
        
        Wed 13 Feb 2002
        
        Image Ressources are for Design elements
        Image Resources are for Design Elements, so if this is an app allowing users to store images, then you definitely want them to attach or paste the images.
        (I don't think there's any (easy) way to let them create image resources.)
        If by app, you mean simply a repository, for design elements that you (as a developer) use across several databases, then you might want to use image resources, as it lets your design elements *BE* design elements and not data elements that serve the purpose of design elements.
        But there are some problems (i can't remember what) that I had trying to use image resources for browser-based apps. (Although I think Jake's trick of putting the base href on every page and making all hrefs relative to that would fix the problem I had... my problem had something to do with the URL changing between forms and documents, so that it would work in one or the other but not both, so you'd never have good links unless they were all absolute....I don't remember more than that... sorry I'm rambling...)
        
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2. - Vei CHong
  - Sun 7 Jan 2007
  Re: What if...?
  yo man i'm the real vei chong who are u ?
  
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- Sanne Boshuizen
- Tue 4 Dec 2001
Only works for single byte char set though
Note that this function doesn't work for a double byte character set.
This means you can't use it for applications that have Japanese content for example.

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- Robert Schuurmans
- Fri 30 Aug 2002
Image from a RTF in a view
Doing my job, making a graphical assets database for our PR department: I have a form with a rich text field where NotesClient users can, beside other discriptive fields, put in a thumbnail image with the help of a file navigator. A button with some @PROMPT([LOCALBROWSE}.. and some @Commands to fill the RTfield will do the job. The next step is to place these thumbnails in a view...and that's where the story ends. The first place where I did find something about this subject is in the Designer Helpfile; about extracting text out of a rich text field with @Abstract.. . On the internet you can find a lot of developers who also present the same hint. But how can I extract an image out of a rich text field to display in my view? It can't be true that this is nearly impossible or is it a well kept secret or is it that we don't need such a feature?

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1. - Ron V
  - Wed 8 Nov 2006
  RTF Image to another form
  Hi, Everytime a new document is saved, it has an image pasted in RTF, I need to copy that to another form or page, so I can have a page or form that shows all the images on 1 page(s). There will not be a lot of images, I just need to quickly see all the images together that have been saved on individual documents. Thanks Ron
  
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- purple
- Fri 13 Dec 2002
Java Applet
Jake, I tested using a rich text field with 'Web Access Display Using Java Applet'. Not working. I change the field to 'Using HTML', it works. Any idea how to solve this? I need to display the value in a view as a summary of what user keyed in the RTF. Thanks.

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- Sam
- Sun 26 Jan 2003
anyway to include formatting as well?
alrite, that helps alot ;) but what if i like to display the formatted contents of the RT field? for example, think of a forum where users post messages using a rich text applet, then i want to display all the posts together on one page (like many of the common msgboards these days), is there a way to achieve this?
thnaks :)

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- Debbie
- Fri 11 Apr 2003
This is really wonderful!

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- Phil Crampe
- Wed 23 Jul 2003
Display Rich Text fields in a view
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

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- Mar
- Fri 27 Feb 2004
And the formatted text?
What about keeping the format of the text in the rich text?

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- Bonita
- Thu 11 Mar 2004
Doesn't work with that godawful Java applet!
I was so excited to find this idea, but was sooo bummed when it didn't work in my form. We chose long ago to use the Java editor applet for editing rich text fields because it gave our end users some formatting capabilities w/o having to learn to write HTML code. Apparently, these RTF fields saved by the java applet are converted to MIME and don't work too well with @Abstract. If anyone has a way around it, I'd love love love to hear it!!

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- Louis Piano
- Thu 10 Jun 2004
No Rich Text
Well for some reason my Rich Text field is not avaible. It displays in the document view, but in the view it fails to show up. OK, what is the trick in setting up the view?

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1. - Spaceman Spiff
  - Wed 5 Jan 2005
  Re: No Rich Text
  The Domino Designer Help says: "If Notes/Domino cannot locate a field by name, it uses the string literal instead." So that's why you may be seeing your field name in the view. I'm getting the same thing though...
  Comment_1 is a rich text field that most definitely exists on my form.
  If I use the following formula @Abstract( [Abbrev]; 20; ""; "Comment_1") the column is filled with "Comment_1".
  If I use the full formula as proposed by Jake @If(@IsAvailable(Comment_1); @Abstract( [Abbrev]; 1; ""; "Comment_1");"xx" ); the column is filled with "xx".
  So that leads me to believe that the Comment_1 field cannot be found by the view?
  So I have the same question as Louis: what do I need to set up the view / column formula correctly?
  
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  1. - Spaceman Spiff
    - Wed 5 Jan 2005
    Too quick
    Hello, me again, solved my own problem (and probably that of Louis also), by reading the text THOROUGHLY this time... It is not the rich text field you show in the view, but the calculated field...
    My only problem now is to recalculate all the documents, without changing the "last updated by" and "last updated on" fields on the form, so that the users are not "surprised"...
    but that's another problem all together...
    
    Reply
- Augustus Olie
- Mon 21 May 2007
Display Rich Text fields in a view
It did't work for me. I actually want to display a rich text in a view in the web web but the method did't solve my problem. what can I do

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- paresh kothari
- Wed 16 Jan 2008
This is good
this is good, but what happend when we want to display some image in view.

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- Brad
- Tue 6 Mar 2012
Hi,
This used to work great, but just had an end user saying it wasn't working any more. Upon investigation found this in the Help for @Abstract: "@Abstract cannot convert rich text to text in a view column"
Anyone know of a new way to do this now that @Abstract is no longer an option.
Thanks,
Brad

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1. - Jake Howlett
  - Tue 6 Mar 2012
  It used to work in a view?
  Why not use a computed text field to store the abstract value?
  
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