AdobeScripts

Math functions

“>”, “<“, “+”, “-“, “*”, “/”, “%”, Round(), Mod(), etc. – to modify numerical values in custom columns – e.g. extract size/location, then use Round() or Mod() to align object’s size/location to the grid.

String manipulation

• Concatenate/Join – combining contents of different columns into a new column – for custom reports or export – XML/HTML/SQL/ePUB, etc.
• Split – to split text into parts in order to extract partial information – e.g. split address in order to get Street or City for sorting or indexing
• Replace – for a direct manipulation of the contents of the columns
• Find – already done for filtering columns – but in this case, it could be used for other purposes – e.g. process current object in a specific way if part of the Label matches

Custom columns

Option to add new/custom columns in order to store a new information – or combination/part of already available text:

• for extra sorting by part of the contents of the column – extract City from the full address or split object’s Label,
• for grouping,
• to use Math functions -e.g. MODulo(2) to get even/odd values and sort/filter,

DataMerge

Assigning Tasks to columns/fields – this way, each column/field in the DataBase can be processed differently.

In the built-in DataMerge, you can only place text or image – in ID-Tasker you can assign specific Task to the column and execute extra operations before/after or based on the contents of the field – e.g. automatically process extra taggin, fit text, resize images, etc. – do things that you would normally have to do AFTER DataMerge is finished. Also, this can have a direct effect on the contents during import of the data.

Extra Tasks for 1st/last column/row – e.g. you have a database, where each product is made from multiple records – 1st record have title, image, description and next N-records have contents for the Table or you need to import more than one image – but you don’t want to create extra placeholders for images in your template. Or when new product starts – you need to perform extra operations – select new template or location. Same when product ends – do extra formatting based on number of imported rows in the Table or number of images.

XML Manipulation

In ID-Tasker, XML is treated as a database where Root level Elements are records and then all sub-Elements are treated as fields – shown as columns.

Thanks to this – Task can be assigned to a specific Tag / Element.

Custom Reports / Exports

Thanks to Custom Columns it’s extremely easy to create custom reports – number & size of used images / number of words/characters / cited authors / etc.

In case of custom XML / HTML / SQL / ePUB export – it would be very easy to add custom tags, extract & add attributes to each object.