Form searches, display key fields.

Hello Foswiki,

Looking to create a form/table with hundreds over entries, most of which are 5 columns.

I was hoping there is a way to reference specific lines within the table, then display them on other pages.

For instance, the table below:

System	Software	Version
Server1	Windows	3.1
Server1	Adobe Acrobat	2
Server2	Windows	8

I then want to be able to reference on the page dedicated to "Server1" the two lines that are associated with "Server1" under the Tag "Software".

The easiest way I can think of is to have the form/table created, then have other pages reference the same form/table, using the headers, but only specific rows (either done through the name search [unique], or the row number).

I would like to included software/hardware/etc.

Reasoning behind this... I do hundreds of upgrades to the table. It would make life MUCH easier if I could just do it all in one form, or even export into excel/openoffice, find/replace, then import back. Saving me several hours worth of work.

That would also be another viable option... can Foswiki import data from a csv or xls?

-- MarkAksel - 12 Jul 2013

Hey Mark, check out MetaDataPlugin which lets you store your table as structured records ... which then make up nice tables. %RENDERMETADATA lets you pick out the stuff you want. Structure rules. Better than flat tables nobody knows what's in there for real. The thing comes with a nice table editor as well. No need to sift through piles of table markup. Rows are defined as DataForms. Clicking a row pops up a modal to edit it in a nice web form. What else.

-- MichaelDaum - 12 Jul 2013