how could I simplify this richText syntax?

Hello Silas Ferreira,

Unknown said:

"vehicle.field, vehicle.year, vehicle.color"

This works fine if you have a CDT or a map and not for RecordTypes. AFAIK You will have to follow this I guess. Its either this or the Index function which would require a little bit more writing.

Unknown said:

`local!vehicle[recordType!AA Vehicle.fields.year]`

What I use as my productivity hack is to have a rule input with the correct record as their data type. Now you can simply use dot operator and start typing your field name and it will also format it once you select. 

Once you do it everywhere on the screen, you can just replace the "ri!student" with your local variable. 

Yes, I totally forgot this trick. Actually a good trick to reduce time and lot of typing work.

good trick, I like this. But, so don't you think it is better to use rule inputs to store the record instead of local variables in this case ?

a!localVariables(
  local!vehicleId,
  local!vehicle: rule!I1_GetVehicleById(local!vehicleId),
  /*a!cardLayout()...*/
)

there is my code which is only a studying example, nothing so serious.

I imagine that if the local "vehicle" becomes a rule input, then "vehicleId" will be required to become a rule input also?

Unlike local variables, you cannot use one RI in another RI. So my suggestion would be, wherever you have this interface plugged, run this query there and pass the result in vehicle rule input, and then just have one single RI on your screen. 

I don't recommend this for all cases but there is always the option of casting your Record to a map.

a!localVariables(
  local!recordMap: cast(typeof(a!map()), ri!LM_Account),
  a!richTextDisplayField(
    value: a!richTextItem(
      text: local!recordMap.id
    )
  )
)

All Appian data types can be referenced using the "type!<Type>" syntax. For maps it would be "type!Map". This way we do not have to first create a map data structure, just to extract its data type.

I know. But it doesn't work with auto-complete which is why I always end up reverting back to typeof().

Agreed. I always prefer using typeof() with the cast function.