CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

It seems odd that when defining a Tag there is no option to specify a default value for it. All Tag values default to False. For example, when creating a new Civi Member manually all the Tags on the form are unticked by default. We want some of the opt-ins for mailings to default to ticked, meaning 'Receive the mailing'. If these could be ticked by default it would save a mouse click per Tag per new member for all but exceptional cases and reduce the risk of accidentally leaving them unticked.

Workarounds:
- Define a Custom Field instead of a Tag since a Custom Field can have a default. But at cost of losing the ease and speed of working with Tags.
- Reverse the Tag's meaning, e.g. from 'Opt-in' to 'Opt-out', so that False is the normal value.
- Is there a concept of a 'Begin-Form' function, where code can set fields when the form is loaded?

I'm not keen on any of these. Default values are pretty basic for database systems.
David

a couple of issue worth thinking about:

a. In general having default values and allow the admin flexibility with regard to this is always a good thing. Allowing stuff to be done via jQ / code is always beneficial but we should always move towards giving the end user the flexibility (and this could be via an extension also)

b. There is lots of data in civicrm that is "optional". i.e. not all contacts have them. This is true of both tags and custom data (in addition to lots of other objects). What does default mean in this case? It has the value when someone visits the relevant page? or when a contact is created, it has the value. Something to think about

c. I think most/all of this should be doabble via an extension to prove the concept. Wanna take a crack at it david?

lobo

we've not yet decided the focus of the edale sprint. It depends on where we are with 4.5 and other stuff

lobo