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Date with Rich Text Option

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Kendall_Shortt
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Hi All,

I have been testing out the rich text option and it has been great so far. I place a lot of dates in my notes section and would like to have a date option in the Rich Text box.

Is this possible and does anyone else have a need similar to this?

6 Comments
Bill_French
17 - Neptune
17 - Neptune

Kendall,

I don’t want to speak for Airtable, but I think this would be pretty difficult given that rich text support is implemented using a subset of the Markdown specification, which doesn’t have any support for dates.

But your idea is a curious one - how would this feature work. I assume you’re at a point in the document where you need a date; you select an icon representing a date object and Airtable would display a date selector? You then choose a date and it gets inserted at the cursor location? Was that what you were thinking?

Bill_French
17 - Neptune
17 - Neptune

@Kendall_Shortt,

If your interest is simply a macro-like feature to generate dates (or anything for that matter) most platforms leave those types of features to the keyboard macro tools.

For example, if I want “12-Nov-2019” inserted into my Airtable rich text field at the cursor, I simply type \d which automatically expands to 12-Nov-2019 (even here in the community). I did not have to type the date - it just expanded instantly and I did not have to enter the space after it. As you can see - it works in Airtable:

image

I have dozens of macros that do many different things such as a code block here in the forum (i.e., \c) expands to:

Example Code

  • comment…
  • comment…
  • comment…

Code

One of the biggest advantages to keyboard-based templates is the speed that they can be dispatched and the fact that any approach that ties these macros to the platform (such as Airtable) do not work in other realms where you also likely type a fair bit of content.

Keyboard macros tend to become an extension of your muscle reactions. As such, once you adopt something like Text Expander, you expect these subtle productivity enhancers to be omni-present. Indeed, any investment in a system that saves time should ideally work everywhere you use your keyboard.

Narcissism and Laziness (from here down)

Wherever I happen to be communicating with others, I tend to promote my services and skills. Here in the Airtable forum I often make mention of Airborne, a search technology that I frequently use to help Airtable clients with search solutions. To do that, I simply type \as and this is what pops out of my keyboard:

You might want to take a quick read of this whitepaper about fast full-text search indexing across Airtable tables, bases, and even multiple workspaces.

I also have a number of shortcuts for popular historical quotes in the forum such as this one from @Chinara_James which I am always referencing - tapping out four characters (/qcj) generates this quote block:

image
… but displays this actual quote:

Kendall_Shortt
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

That was my idea but I don’t know anything about programming so I appreciate letting me know that this could be difficult.

My specific use case is the following and maybe that can spark another idea:

I use my notes section as a CRM inside of a project. For instance, I’m currently working on project A and inside the notes column I place a date every time I talk to a customer who gives feedback on project A.

11/12/19

Customer likes product

11/13/19

Other customer doesn’t like product

This can get annoying when I’m doing 50+ surveys.

Thanks again for the reply.

WARNING: This email originated from outside our organization. Do not click on any attachments or links or reply with sensitive information unless you trust the sender and have verified the content is safe.

Bill.French
Bill.French

November 12

59a1d347679cdf470a8d5f9f2913e4cb86e48185.jpeg
Kendall_Shortt:
I place a lot of dates in my notes section and would like to have a date option in the Rich Text box.

Kendall,

I don’t want to speak for Airtable, but I think this would be pretty difficult given that rich text support is implemented using a subset of the

Markdown specification
, which doesn’t have any support for dates.

But your idea is a curious one - how would this feature work. I assume you’re at a point in the document where you need a date; you select an icon representing a date object and Airtable would display a date selector? You then
choose a date and it gets inserted at the cursor location? Was that what you were thinking?

Bill_French
17 - Neptune
17 - Neptune

Yep - this seems like a feature that could be implemented using keyboard shortcuts and the performance would be better than clicking an icon.

Kendall_Shortt
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Awesome thanks so much Bill.

Justin_Barrett
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

+1 for using keyboard shortcuts. I got hooked on TextExpander a while back, and use it all over the place: data entry in Airtable, writing forum posts, etc. Incredibly helpful!