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https://github.com/redturtle/rt.bulkmodify

Plone utility for performing mass text substitutions
https://github.com/redturtle/rt.bulkmodify

Last synced: about 1 year ago
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Plone utility for performing mass text substitutions

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README 

          
.. contents:: **Table of contents**



Read carefully!

===============



Even if this product is giving you an high level Plone user interface, **it's not designed for end users**

or "*normal*" site administrators.

You must be a `Python regular expression`__ expert (probably a Grand Master).



__ http://docs.python.org/2/howto/regex.html



Also: when used this product can **slow down** your running Plone site.



.. Note:: **backup** your Plone site and be careful



Introduction

============



This product will give to your Plone site managers a tool for performing text search using `regular expressions`__

query and optionally performing text substitutions on the main rich text field of your site's contents and

static text portlets.



__ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression



A usecase

=========



You are working at the Ministry of Truth in the super-state of Oceania.

War history say that Oceania is allied with Eastasia and in war with Eurasia.



You are in charge of keeping the Oceania web site updated and the Party choosed Plone as the unique CMS available.



Then the Party apply the Doublethink, and history change: Oceania had never been allied with Eastasia, but

it's allied with Eurasia (and in war with Eastasia).

You must quickly updated the Plone site.



You need to quickly review all document where Eastasia and Eurasia are named and, if needed, switch the two names.

You can't simply perform a bach substitution because you must read the context on which the term to be replaced is

used.



For example: a document that talk about Eastasia as a friend must be changed, a document that describe the

geographical position of Eurasia can remain untouched.



How to use

==========



This product is designed for performing the same text type of replacement operation on many documents without

going to edit every ones.



By default the product works with all known rich text fields of Plone contents, that are:



* text field from Page content type

* text field from Event content type

* text field from News Item content type

* text field from Collection content type (old-style also)



Also you can choose to modify rich text fields of static text porltlets.



You can extending the set above providing 3rd party extensions (see below).



Accessing the "*Bulk modify contents*" panel

--------------------------------------------



In your "Site setup" section you will find a new "*Bulk modify contents*" panel.

All operations take places from this page.



Basic search

------------



The upper section of the page is about searching contents.



.. image:: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-01.png/image_large

   :alt: Search form

   :target: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-01.png/



You must select which content types you want to inspect by checking the "**Content types**" section.

Although this selection display all content types, note that only a subset of them usable (for example: the Link

content types is not using any text field right now).



This selection will trigger a catalog search of all types in the selection (so keep this selection at minimum

and try to avoid the portlet replacement, as it has to retrieve every object)



The most important field is the "**Search regex**", where you must write a regular expression.

For every content type found, it's text field will be loaded and text inside wil be parsed for searching matches

with the regex.



You can change some regex search configuration option using the "**Regex flags**" set of checkboxes.



Now you can hit the search button below.



Results

-------



Results of the search are displayed in a table at the bottom of the page.



.. image:: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-02.png/image_large

   :alt: Search form

   :target: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-02.png/



The table will contain a preview of the found text and minimal information about the content.

Please note that a single document can be found multiple time in the table as the minimal entity is the text match,

not the document itself.



Replace text

------------



The simpler way of performing text replacement is get filling the "**Default replacement**" text area.



.. image:: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-05.png/image_large

   :alt: Search form

   :target: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-05.png/



The table of results will change, providing a graphical preview of what will be changed applying your

replacement expression.



.. image:: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-03.png/image_large

   :alt: Search form

   :target: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-03.png/



The user must now select all replacement that he really want to apply, the click the "**Modify selected**" button.

Only selected matches are changed.



.. image:: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-04.png/image_large

   :alt: Search form

   :target: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-04.png/



Replacing options

-----------------



When changing text you are (obviously) changing a Plone content, so you have some additional option available:



*Do not update anything (silent change)*

    Useful if you want to fix some contents without updating other metadata from the content itself.

    Only the text field (and the Plone full text index) will be updated.

    

    Site members will never notice this type of changes.

*Update modification time*

    Update also the last modification time of the document.

*Create a new version (if possible)*

    Full modification. If the content type is versionable, a new version will be saved.



Replace text inside portlets

----------------------------



You can also check the option "*Include portlets*" to performing searches and replacements inside

static text portlets (in facts, whatever portlet with a ``text`` attribute is accessed).

This will not scan the site for portlets themself (something that is not possible in Plone right now)

but when searching for content types, portlets attached to those contents are also scanned.

This mean that portlets in the site root are skipped (don't be lazy... fix them yourself).



Advanced use

============



Advanced server side operations

-------------------------------



Sometimes a simple text regex expression is not enough.

This product is supporting a way of handling really complex text substitution by calling some server side

components.



By default, only one handler is available: "**Convert internal links to resolveuid usage**", that can transform

Plone internal links to content to a form that use the "``resolveuid``" call.

This can be used in Plone sites where the TinyMCE option "*Link using UIDs*" were not enabled by mistake

(something like the feature given by Kupu editor).



.. image:: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-06.png/image_large

   :alt: Search form

   :target: http://blog.redturtle.it/pypi-images/rt.bulkmodify/rt.bulkmodify-0.1-06.png/



Adding new server side special handlers

---------------------------------------



Proving new ``IBulkModifyReplacementHandler`` utility will automatically display new special replacement::



    



Extending handled types

-----------------------



To being able to change a text field of a type not handled, you must provide a proper adapter with a 3rd party

product::



  



TODO

====



* Adding a way for using text substitution also as a running script for instance

* We **really** need JavaScript tests

* JavaScript is all but optimized

* The product is designed for performing multiple write commit on ZODB, but probably a

  way of performing a single huge write operation can be useful



Credits

=======



Developed with the support of `Regione Emilia Romagna`__;

Regione Emilia Romagna supports the `PloneGov initiative`__.



__ http://www.regione.emilia-romagna.it/

__ http://www.plonegov.it/



Authors

=======



This product was developed by RedTurtle Technology team.



.. image:: http://www.redturtle.it/redturtle_banner.png

   :alt: RedTurtle Technology Site

   :target: http://www.redturtle.it/



Special thanks to `Patrick Gerken`__ for providing portlet support.



__ https://github.com/do3cc