I"m trying to visually organize notes. It made sense to use layers of adornments to do this. I’m still fairly new to utilizing map view. My problem is that I can’t get adornments to layer reliably. So if I have a larger adornment encompassing two smaller ones, I can’t reliably select the smaller adornments. Nor can I shift the layer sequence for the larger adornment.
I suppose one solution would be to use a container note instead. But first I want to discover if my attempted use of adornment layers is just wrong-headed.
You can’t (modified-)click select a smaller adornment behind a larger one. Don’t overlook blind-typing the name of a background (non-clickable) object to select it. Then, for any selected adornment, you can use items of the View → Arrange menu to move the selection to front/back or 1 level up/down the z-order (staking order).
In the example above you’re essentially drawing an outline onto the single layer represented by a map. In the left image ‘Syllabus’ tests as being inside() ‘Discussions’. Thus ‘Discussions’ is not merely graphical label, which is what it appears to being used for. I suspect what you’re looking for are such labels/boxes that are for visual markup but not part of the actual data (as in notes, adornment, etc.); those would be a feature request at this point. Until then, I’d suggest that as in the right image, don’t nest 'label objects. Although a bit more work, don’t overlook the use of adornment as map dividers, which go some way to giving you visual boundaries on the map.
Tinderbox 7.0.1 incorrectly moves an adornment that overlaps with another adornment when you Move To Front or Send To Back. This will be fixed in the next release.
Don’t forget that you can Lock adornments to the background.
Finally, consider transparent adornments as convenient ways to label a group of adornments or other notes.
Thanks for the suggestions and confirmation of my trial and error conclusion that I can’t quite control the layering of adornments. Mark A.'s work-around would allow me to get at the “covered” adornments reliably.
I tried locking the top adornment, but it still didn’t allow me to get at the ones below it.
Mark B.'s suggestion that I try a transparent color is also useful. This would allow me to place labels on maps that aren’t distracting. I like this. I’m attaching a revised image. I’m using TB to show faculty a schematic of a course design, combined with some details of how the pieces would look on-screen to faculty and students.
Note that locking doesn’t affect stacking order (Z axis), but simply stops movement in the X/Y directions. So an adornment can be stacked behind a locked adornment.
Right. In my case, it would work better of the covering adornment could be at the bottom, but the only option is to move it up/to the top. This discussion has given me good fodder to try some alternative approaches. Thanks again to you, and everyone else.
Tinderbox 7.0.2 will let you move adornments to the front or back of the adornment stack without having them move in unwanted ways. So you should be able to stack your adornments now however you prefer.
My goodness! I make a post 30 minutes ago and 20 minutes later there’s an enhancement. It’s like a TB build made to order. Already downloaded 7.0.2 and installed. Thanks again.
Of course I’m a subscriber.
