Here are some tips to help you be more productive with Easy Data Transform.
1. Check the show advanced checkbox in the Left pane to see all available transforms.
2. Type a keyword in the transform keywords field to quickly find the right transform.
3. Add a transform by clicking an existing Center pane item and typing the first few letters of the transform name.
4. Uncheck Run>Auto Run to take full control of when items are processed.
5. Hold down the Shift key and drag on the Center pane to scroll left/right/up/down.
6. Use Note items to remind yourself how a complex .transform works.
7. Look in the Warnings and Info tabs in the Right pane to troubleshoot potential issues.
8. Select multiple items in the Center pane by left clicking with the mouse and dragging a box over the items you want to select.
9. Add a transform to an existing connection, rather than disconnecting and reconnecting existing transforms.
10. Improve performance for large datasets by adding a Sample transform straight after the input of a large dataset and set Rows to pass through only the first 100 or so rows. Once you have completed all your transforms you can then Disable sampling to pass through all rows.
11. Double click on an item in the Center pane to show it fullscreen. Escape to close the window.
12. Use a schema to handle changes in columns in an input.
13. Check View>Timing Profile to see where the processing time is being spent.
14. Click the eye icon in the Right pane to show whitespace and invisible characters in the data.
15. Check compare changes in the Right pane to see changes from a transform (selected transforms only).
16. Select a column and click the column values icon in the Right pane to show the frequency of values in that column. Potential issues are shown in red.
17. Check that the values in a dataset conform to your expectations using a Verify transform.
18. Enable drilldown to double click on a cell and see how the information was derived (selected transforms only).
19. Filter data in the Right pane. This does not change the underlying data.
20. Display the currently selected value from in the data table in a separate window by pressing the Space key or selecting Show Value... from the right click menu. This is useful for inspecting values that are too wide to be displayed in the data table.
21. If you need several similar branches of transforms you can create one branch and duplicate it.
22. If you have 2 or more monitors connected to your computer select View>Two Screen Mode to show the Right pane on your second monitor.
23. Use batch processing with wildcards (e.g. *.csv) to process a folder full of input files in one operation.
24. Use command line arguments to run .transform files from a batch or script file.
25. Use file name variables to set the name of an output file based on the name of an input file, date created etc.
26. Use column variables when you want to use values from columns in transforms such as If and Filter.
27. Compare the headers of 2+ datasets by selecting the items in the Center pane and selecting View>Compare Headers... .
28. Compare the data values of 2 datasets by selecting the items in the Center pane and selecting View>Compare Data... .
29. Click on a status icon in the status bar to select and zoom in on all items with that status.
30. Learn keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can quickly change selection in the Center pane using arrow keys with the Ctrl key.
31. Check watch file in the Right pane for an input file if you want to trigger processing (Run>Auto Run checked) or set it to 'Needs update' (Run>Auto Run unchecked) whenever it changes.
32. Check View>Show Row/Col Changes to show changes in the number of rows and columns in the Center pane.
33. Use the Subtract transform to perform an 'anti-join'.
34. Deploy Easy Data Transform as a portable application so you can run it from a USB key or install it on computers where you have limited access rights.
35. Find items matching one or more search terms in the Center pane using View>Find Items.
36. Magnify under the cursor in the Center pane using View>Magnify Cursor.
37. Use the right click menu to add Carriage Return, Line Feed, Tab or Null characters into a text option for a transform.
38. Use fuzzy matching to match text values that aren't identical.
39. Experiment with changing Optimize processing for from Minimum memory use to Maximum speed in Preferences to see if that improves performance. It may be slower or it may use up all your memory.
40. Hover over an item in the Center pane and press the # key to show the Data Preview window.
You can press the # key again to close the window. If the# key is not convenient, you can use = instead.
41. Change the Center pane color scheme in the Colors tab of the Preferences window.
42. Select View>Toggle UI Theme to swap between light and dark user interface themes.
43. Select File>New Window to open a new Main window.
44. Set the Center pane mouse wheel behavior in the Preferences window.
45. Hold down the Ctrl key when adding a new transform or output item to add it to the bottom left or the current canvas. Otherwise, it will be added to the right of the currently selected item(s). This works when inserting by clicking a button in the Left pane, typing a transform name or adding from the right click menu.
46. When outputting Excel, check use style template to copy the styling across from another Excel spreadsheet.
47. Quickly select a column by pressing the filter button and typing a few characters of the name.
48. Quickly check/uncheck multiple columns using the Select Columns window.
49. Change focus between the Center and Right panes using Alt+Left and Alt+Right.
50. Check the gray Left pane buttons when not available checkbox in the General tab of the Preferences window for Left pane buttons to be disabled until the appropriate items in the Center pane are selected.