Cell styles based on content from a data merge?

I, too, am klooking for a script that can change the cell style based on contents. For example, I'd like to be able to select a column, and run a script that would take a cell containing "Red" and change the background to red. I'm very very new to JS and InDesign (I've had some classes in HTML, PHP, CSS, C+, etc). I've already set up the cell styles and the scripts I've found cannot be tweaked or freeze InDesign. I'm on XP with CS4. Any help is appreciated.

Sure, there might even be a few different ways.

This quick script is fairly straightforward: from the current insertion point (the cursor) or selection (when you selected an entire cell, for example), it finds the table you are in by progressing 'upwards' until you find a table. Then it loops over all individual cells and calls a function to compare the 'contents' -- the literal text inside the cell -- against a list and return a cell style name for the interesting ones.

In the function getStyleForText, you can add your new words ("beginner", "intermediate") and have it return a different cell style name for each one ("Red", "Blue").

Be sure to only return cell style names that actually exist in your document; Javascript is good at doing what you tell it to but not at doing what you want.

if (app.selection.length == 1)
{
     myTable = app.selection[0];
     if (myTable.hasOwnProperty ("baseline"))
          myTable = myTable.parent;
     if (myTable instanceof Cell)
          myTable = myTable.parent;
     if (myTable instanceof Row)
          myTable = myTable.parent;
     if (myTable instanceof Column)
          myTable = myTable.parent;
     if (myTable instanceof Table)
     {
          for (c=0; c<myTable.cells.length; c++)
          {
               style = getStyleForText (myTable.cells.contents);
               if (style)
                    myTable.cells.appliedCellStyle = style;
          }
     }
}
function getStyleForText (text)
{
     switch (text)
     {
          case "beginner": return "Red";
          case "intermediate": return "Blue";
     }
     return null;
}