Title: Introduction to the Rapid Selector Guide

Introduction

Traction® Software's TeamPage™ plaform is based on the idea of a Memex machine, described by Vannevar Bush in his 1945 Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think. The Rapid Selector was another of Bush's inventions, a machine that would allow the near instant recall of information stored on microfilm.

Like the Memex, Traction's Rapid Selector is a command language that lets you execute searches or switch to any Traction view with a relatively simple command or hyperlink. You can use the Rapid Selector to:

Express simple or complex search commands: You might want to find all entries or articles from this month with the word Shirt or you might want to find all entries in the ProductAlpha project that are labeled Feature and have the V2 and ToDo labels on the same paragraph.
Track tags added or removed: Find all cases where a ToDo tag was changed to Done. With the Rapid Selector you can select a view that shows the paragraphs or articles marked Done in any time period.
Change Perspective: You can show the tags that were applied to articles at a certain point in time.
Change View: You can immediately get to any view Traction can generate, like a specific space's dashboard or a specific article's cross references.
Create Links: The same commands that let you navigate interactively can also be written into the text of articles, where they become clickable hyperlinks for readers.

Rapid Selector commands are expressed by typing the command in the search box, within Traction article text, or encoded in a URL. Here are three examples from each of these locations which will switch your view to the ProductAlpha space dashboard.

Access Point	Method	Example
`Search Box`	Precede the expression with the / character	`/::productalpha np` `"np" was shorthand for NewsPage, the predecessor to the current "dashboard"`
Section	The Filter By \| Search box in Section setup (for Dashboards or within an Article) is a Rapid Selector box.	Filters for entries tagged todo but not tagged bug
`Article Text`	Like a wiki page link, Use the link keyword, surrounded by double brackets and but begin the expression with a /
`URL Permalink and Rapid Selector link`	Follow server name with /rs/

Here are a few example expressions to get you started.

Type this into the Rapid Selector	To
/`ProductAlpha12`	Jump to a single article view of the entry.
`/brief`	Make the current view brief.
`/full`	Make the current view full.
`/chron`	Show a chronology view.
`/today`	Go to today.
`/12jan99`	Go to january 12, 1999.
`/12jan99 - 18jan99`	Go to the specified time period.
`/week`	Set the slice size to a week.
`/day`	Set the slice size to a day.
`/12jan99 wbc`	Show a brief chronology of the week containing January 12th.
`/:news bmt`	Show a brief view of this month's articles tagged news
`/:news f`	Show a full multi-topic view of the tags :news and :headline. You need only type as much of a tag as necessary to identify it uniquely.
`/10 11 12`	Show a multi-entry view of articles 10 through 12 in the current space.
`/14 x`	Show a two-panel view of article 14 in the current space. The top panel contains the normal single-entry view. The bottom panel displays a graphical cross-reference view.
`/attachments`	Show a view of the attachments in the current time slice.

parents (1)

Doc359: Rapid Selector Guide

referenced by (8)

Doc359: Rapid Selector Guide Doc282: Start Page Doc237: Searching in Traction Doc230: RSS and Atom - Configuring Feeds from Traction Doc185: Open any Article Directly Doc175: Navigating the Interface - In the Mexico Skin Doc174: Navigating the Earth Skin Doc22: Sections Overview

Article: Doc147 (permalink)
Date: March 22, 2008; 4:06:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time

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