Primary Items

Understanding how primary items work is integral to using the Ex-Online tag browser efficiently as it enables the use of bulk operations to edit values and attach documents or associated equipment. The primary item is the item used to open the Equipment or Associated Equipment windows by clicking the green circular icon with three dots. The primary item is listed at the top of this window just below the title.

Functions will either affect only the primary item regardless of the current selection, or they will affect the current selection based on the primary item.

The following extract from the article Equipment Item Details describes how primary items and current selection will affect the editing of item details.

The Item Details tab in the Equipment window is where the user can see the details for an item. The information in the Item Details tab will be in one of two formats based on the context in which it was opened. These formats are Primary Item Edit and Group Edit modes. Opening the Equipment window with zero or one items selected will enter Primary Item Edit mode and only show the details of the Primary Item, which is the item used to open the equipment window. Opening the Equipment window with multiple items selected will enter Group Edit mode which can be identified by the Tag Number being replaced with a greyed out textbook with the words ‘Group Edit Mode’.

Editing in Primary Item Edit mode will always edit the details of only the primary item, even if that is not the selected item. This is intended behavior due to the way bulk editing documents works, care should be taken to ensure that the primary item listed at the top of the Equipment window matches the item you want to edit. Group Edit mode will only edit the selected items, and will not edit the primary item if it is not also selected. Care should taken to ensure that the current selection contains all items you wish to edit as a group and no others.