Keys, Phone, Wallet, Shopping List…….
I don’t know about you but I find these days if I visit a supermarket without a list of items, I end up having a return visit when my wife completes the back to base inventory.
Having a list of items that you actually want can avoid those extra items in the basket that end up costing you money and sit at the back of the cupboard gathering dust.
After a brief email chat with Dave about the possibility of using comma separated lists to reduce the number of profiles I was using day to day, he returned within hours with a beta version that blew my socks off (must add those to the shopping list!).
A few minor tweaks and an update release and voila! The horizons opened up for ways to find many new aisles of profit by leaving some of the less desirable items on the shelf.
So in brief, LISTS allows you to define multiple search parameters within RaceMeet, Trainer, Jockey and RaceGround. Instead of looking at all courses or only one course, you can define a truncated list of those to include or exclude in the search.
What I want to show you in this blog post is –
• The mechanics of using lists.
In my next blog post I will be looking in more detail at –
• The benefits of using lists.
• Ways to define a list.
• How to maybe not over use lists.
The Mechanics: How to create and use a LIST.
For this example I will be using RaceMeet: The same process applies to Jockey, Trainer and RceGround criteria.
Choosing the RaceMeet Criteria allows you to select ‘LIST’ or ‘NOT LIST’ from the String Operator column.
(LIST includes all named, NOT LIST excludes all named).
This allows a comma separated list of names to be entered into the ‘Value’ Box.
However as we are dealing with databases those names have to be spelled correctly to be identified.
It is possible to type string values in but there is a quicker, easier and fool proof way.
Right clicking in the Value box brings up a menu for dealing with text entry. We will start with the ‘Search String Generator’.
A new screen will appear as per the screenshot below –
Here you can see all the available database values for the RaceMeet criteria; all have the correct spelling (I always have to think if I need to write Ffos Las or Tipperary).
From this point there are several options:
- Manually select the courses you want to include in the search string
- Paste data into the Generator to populate a list
We’ll start with the simple manual option. This could be fine for you if you know which courses you want to include or exclude.
Clicking in the box selects that course and will include the name in the search.
When you have all the courses ticked that you want, click the ‘Add All Ticked to TextBox’ button
You will then see a comma separated list of your selected items generated in the box.
Click the right hand button, ‘Copy Created String to Clipboard’ and the string is saved for use.
Next we need to get that string into your system so go back to the Selection Hunter window, right click in the RaceMeet Value box and click ‘Paste’ to add the saved string values.
(You also have the option of clicking directly into the value box and use ‘Ctrl+V’ to paste the data.)
You will see that all the values have been pasted separated by commas.
Running this system will now select qualifiers from the range of courses in the LIST.
If you have a LIST already in the box, you can modify it either in the value box by typing/deleting in situ or by editing in the String Generator.
Right Clicking the Value box shows some useful editing options.
- Select All – Cut
- Select All – Copy
- Clear TextBox
I often use the String generator to check which courses I selected for a system by using ‘Select All – Copy’ and clicking the ‘Paste in Comma Separated List’ function. This saves scrolling through the Value Box.
Clicking the ‘Tick All Matches Found’ button populates the tick boxes as we did previously.
You can then amend and step through the process again to paste the new values string to Selection Hunter.
The ‘Paste in Comma Separated List’ function will also paste in data from cells of a spreadsheet: this will be covered in more detail in the ‘Ways to Define a List’ section.
Trainers, Jockeys and Race Ground.
The same process is applicable for creating Lists for Trainers , Jockeys and RaceGround. Just ensure that you select the appropriate tab on the String Generator when copying /pasting data.
Now we have covered the Mechanics of LISTS, we can move on to the exciting stuff. In my next blog post I will be looking in more detail at –
• The benefits of using lists.
• Ways to define a list.
• How to maybe not over use lists.