leomrocha/docx4u

Main repository for docx templating

docx4u's Issues

documents do not need rename feature

title

Template files are copied, they shouldn't

FileList.tsx copies the files when they are selected for to a new directory.

Files should not be copied, only the original used and never modified by the program.
Copying files has at least the following usage problems:

• Having a copy will confuse users as if (when) they modify their template the copy will not be modified, and the program will keep looking at the copied (outdated) file
• More file management code to do and maintain
• Also if a copy exists it might be erased by the user (the user didn't create them, might think it's OK to erase it)
• This copy does not seem to be working in linux (the folder is not created or created somewhere else)

Even if for a first MVP there is no need to check the state, but it is a good feature for a next stage
A simpler approach is only create a file that contains the database with the details of where the templates exist and the last state of the application (like it's done now)

Empty tags during generation create an empty space on the final document

This is a topic that might cause usage problems, I suggest the following approaches:

1. If there are empty tags do not let generate the document, they need to input something (at least a space) or in that field select to leave it empty (maybe a checkbox or something)
2. Empty tags generate the template, but let there the template tags intact for that field i.e. {%%}
3. When there are empty tags warn the user and prompts to select which option to use from the options (1.) or (2.)

For usability I would add:

• A color code for empty or invalid fields as red (or yellow) and a mark that shows the user that needs to be filled (a warning sign next to the field for example )
• A color code as green when a field is filled correctly

In the future the idea is to add support for field type (being able to select if is numeric, text, date, currency ... )

Output file is a ZIP, it should be plain .docx files

Currently the output is saved inside a zip file, it should be plain .docx files

While this might be nice for directly sending the group of files (nice feature for a future iteration), as it is not demanded by the user it just makes the workflow harder as the user will want to open and verify the file, having to extract it

Desired workflow:

The name of the output files should be by default the same as the template file with a prefix so it does not overwrite the original template by accident, an easy default name is yyyy-mm-dd_ORIGINAL_FILENAME.docx
The folder where the output is created should be selected in case of many files to be written (the original templates are from many files together)