In one of our recent posts, we learnt how to assign default values to dictionary entries in order to ensure better consistency and easy terminology management, as well as other advantages. In this post, we will learn how to assign default values to a dictionary in which some of the fields already have some values pre-assigned. This helps when you have received a dictionary from a client and would like to include additional information in it, apart from the terms contained within it. Sometimes dictionary entries will already have some default values for certain terms that you may wish to retain. In order to do so, you can specify whether TermStar NXT should only assign the contents if the field is empty or if it contains data.

Let's get started! Open the dictionary in which you wish to assign values to a field and proceed as follows:

Step 1: Select Processing | Global changes | Field contents | Assign. TermStar NXT displays the Assign tab of the Change field contents window as shown in the image below:

Step 2: Select the field to which you wish to assign content from the left-hand list in the Target field section. If you have not selected a header field, select the language to whose fields you wish to assign content.

Step 3: In the Value field, enter the content that you wish to assign to the field.

Step 4: In the Assign options section, specify when TermStar NXT should assign the content. Select All fields if you want TermStar NXT to assign the contents to all fields. Select Only empty fields if you want TermStar NXT to assign the contents to the field if the field has not yet been completed. And select Only fields with content if you want TermStar NXT to assign the contents to the field if it has already been completed. 

Step 5:  There are two ways of starting the global changes function:
a. Change: Let's imagine you wish to assign a value to the Context field of the language, but a value is already assigned to this field for a few entries. Click on Change. TermStar individually checks each field containing values and prompts you so that you can decide if you want to change the existing value of a field to a new one. You can select to change it or proceed to the next entry if you do not wish to change it. Alternatively, you can select the Assign option "Only empty fields" to assign the new field value only to those fields that do not contain anything.

b. To start the global changes function without prompts, click Change all. TermStar NXT changes the language entries according to your settings without prompting you for confirmation.

Step 6: When TermStar NXT has finished the global changes, it displays the Close button in the Status window together with the total number of checked and modified data records as shown in the image below:

You can thus decide whether to assign values to only empty fields or all fields of dictionary entries. This efficient terminology management process helps keep terminology up-to-date and make it easy to access and modify entries at any time you wish.

I hope you find this terminology management feature offered by TermStar NXT useful. Please do let us know what you think of this feature and don't hesitate to send us your comments or request specific posts that you would like us to cover. We will soon be covering another interesting terminology management feature so stay tuned until then!