Rich text to Markdown with relations in automation

Ideas & Features
1

I want to make a rich text field for templating, instead of doing this in the automations section. So the ability to reference fields in the rich text field with {{}}, and then in the markdown section in the automation, just reference {{Rich text field}}.
Essentially allow nested markdown templates. This would allow for more user friendly templating. Can this be done with some scripting maybe?

2

You would need one RTF to define the template, and a second “output” RTF field to hold the interpolated result, plus a Rule that triggers when any of the referenced fields are updated, and calculates a new result value and saves it to the “output” RTF.

3

If I understand the request correctly, I think it is not possible.
An automation does one level of processing of the markdown at the time of execution.
If you were to type {{Rich text field}} in the automation, then it would (correctly) interpret that as you wanting the contents of the Rich text field.
If the Rich text field itself contained markdown expressions, e.g.
I would like to show {{This field}}
this will not be processed.

And I should also point out that rich text is stored as markdown, so what gets rendered as
I would like to show {{This field}}
is stored internally as
I would like to show \{\{This field\}\}
so it wouldn’t even work if there were multiple levels of markdown processing.

4

I see, I’ll give Matt’s idea a shot… But yeah you’re getting the idea right Chris.

I guess this relates to the popular request of having in-line fields in RTF. But then having those fields dynamic…

Anyhow, I’ll leave this here as an idea. I get why it’s not possible at the moment (very easily), but I think it could be quite valuable when templating. (Which is something relevant across many domains).

5

When you can see consistent benefit of nested markdown templates in your workflows, then you can create a ‘Placeholder’ database that defines a string to be replaced through an automation, with a field Delimiters, the specific characters or sequences (like [] or [[ ]]) used to mark the beginning and end of a placeholder. An automation 'If RTF changes, replace Placeholders X with … and Y with …etc. Essentially its a templating engine based on automations. This combined with fibery markdown templates will allow for custom and dynamic nestings (e.g. replacement of embedded nodes in real time).

1 Like
6

Ooh thanks Yuri!

I’ll give this a shot!

7

Did this work for you @RonMakesSystems ?
And if so, would you be able to share a example
Best regards

8

Hey Tom! No, I never got around to making this unfortunately.