Custom colum to show the first date one of a group of tags was added?

dewd · 12-09-2021, 04:04 AM

I've been thinking about this but my trying-to-get-over-flu brain is not getting anywhere with it.

Let's say I have a group of tags.

And I want to be able to see when I first added any one of those tags to a particular book, and, if possible, to search by that date, or sort by that date. I do not want the date to change if I add another one of those tags later - so from the first time it's set, it should be "frozen".

I had two ideas (but am open to better solutions):
1. use a custom column built from other columns which would, when one of those tags is added, autofill with the current date (but I'm a novice at templates - the ones I use, I've copied from here - so I'd need help building that)
2. use Action Chains, which I already use to add those tags, so it would be straightforward to add another action to fill in the date on a date column.

In either case, though, I don't know how to tell it to not change after it's filled the first time - i.e. if I later add a second one of those tags.

Thanks in advance, and apologies if I'm still more addled than I thought and this isn't making sense.

dewd · 12-10-2021, 01:35 PM

I've figured it out - possibly not the most elegant way to do it, but I created a saved search for the books with an empty date field, then used the selection modifier in Action Chains so that only those books are edited by the next action. (And of course all the other actions in the chain have to come before that selection modifier.)

12-09-2021, 04:04 AM	#1
dewd Connoisseur Posts: 50 Karma: 52704 Join Date: Nov 2017 Device: none	Custom colum to show the first date one of a group of tags was added? I've been thinking about this but my trying-to-get-over-flu brain is not getting anywhere with it. Let's say I have a group of tags. And I want to be able to see when I first added any one of those tags to a particular book, and, if possible, to search by that date, or sort by that date. I do not want the date to change if I add another one of those tags later - so from the first time it's set, it should be "frozen". I had two ideas (but am open to better solutions): 1. use a custom column built from other columns which would, when one of those tags is added, autofill with the current date (but I'm a novice at templates - the ones I use, I've copied from here - so I'd need help building that) 2. use Action Chains, which I already use to add those tags, so it would be straightforward to add another action to fill in the date on a date column. In either case, though, I don't know how to tell it to not change after it's filled the first time - i.e. if I later add a second one of those tags. Thanks in advance, and apologies if I'm still more addled than I thought and this isn't making sense.

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12-10-2021, 01:35 PM	#2
dewd Connoisseur Posts: 50 Karma: 52704 Join Date: Nov 2017 Device: none	I've figured it out - possibly not the most elegant way to do it, but I created a saved search for the books with an empty date field, then used the selection modifier in Action Chains so that only those books are edited by the next action. (And of course all the other actions in the chain have to come before that selection modifier.)

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