I have some references (_pReference) with quotes (_pQuote) which are linked. Now I would like to create aliases to the events (_pEvent) where I use the quote to be able to drag and drop it there to visualise the structure of the talks.
The often mentioned attribute browser seems to be the perfect tool to discover the quotes I want to use. But how do I create an alias for the selected note?
OK, I read that youâve 3 sorts of notes (using 3 discrete prototypes). The quote notes link to their source, from which I assume the quotes are not children of their source reference; the letter is an outline approach but less suited to those preferring a flat structure needed for maps.
Here is where I get lost. I think you mean that if an event note âusesâ a quote (in its $Text?) you want you place an alias of the event note âinâ the source quote (as a child?). Is that correct?
quotes as children.
in addition the quotes are linked to their parent reference with an $OnAdd. The idea was to be prepared if I have to leave the container setup for every note which I currently have.
For an Event I want to select different quotes and put those notes as aliases in the events container. The idea is to select all the notes which I want to use, have an alias in the corresponding event-container and then being able to push these alias-notes in map view around until I have a nice structure of the talk with the quotes at the right chapter.
So it is the other way around, I would like to place an alias of an _pQuote (child of _pReference and linked to _pReference) as a child into a _pEvent-Container.
Unfortunately, Attribute Browser doesnât let you create aliases of notes (or even select multiple notes at once!)
If youâre okay with working one note at a time, itâs pretty simple: select a note, open a new tab (cmd+T), and switch to the view you want (outline, map, etc). The note should still be selected and you can create an alias, which you can move anywhere you want.
If you want to work with multiple notes âin bulk,â use Attribute Browser as a quick method of trying out different agent queries and seeing that you get the information you need. When you find the query that returns the notes you want, you can create an agent using the same query to return all the notes you want.
The âlimitationâ of the attribute browser and your comment brought me on a track which currently feels pretty comfortable:
I included in _pQuotes an attribute âusedInEventâ of type Set. In the attribute browser I can easily scan my quotes and assign âusedinEvent=talk1â to all interesting quotes.
An agent scans for â$usedinEvent.contains(âtalk1â)â and with Cleanup disabled I can put the quotes onto some adornments.
What I would like to do: having an adornment which, when the note is put on it, set an attribute "$usedInChapter(original)=$usedInChapter(original)+âchapter1â.
My questions would be:
if âchapter1â in the above command shall be an Attribute of the adornment, how do I distinguish in the Action between the attribute of the notes/alias and the one of the adornment.
if a note is used in more than one event (e.g. âfunnyEventâ), it is easy to add that to the set of $usedInEvent. But how to create a $usedInChapter per event when I do not now anything about the number of events, names ⌠in advance?
Put that in the adornmentâs action code. ($usedIn and $identifier are both user attributes I made up)
I donât quite follow this question, but it seems to me like it would behave the same as events. Sets are particularly useful when you have information and you donât know all of the potential values ahead of time. So, you can manually add a value to $usedInChapter, or set up an adornment, stamp, container w/ $OnAdd⌠anywhere youâve got action code really.
Perhaps if you share a more specific example of what youâre trying to add to $usedInEvent and $usedInChapter, then I can be more helpful. Or maybe someone else has a better understanding of what youâre trying to do.
What metadataâin either item (event or quote)âwould allow us to identify that relationship? I donât see anything described thus far. IOW, if you want to automatically do something to represent the relationship you need some data off which to build an action.
If you go an on-screen route, Cmd+L will make and select an alias of the selected note. This alias can now be dragged (manually) elsewhere.
itâs fun to identify all the different possible ways to solve a problem.
My initial idea was creating the aliases in the attribute browser to sort them into the different events containers and onto the chapter-adornments.
The workflow now is:
setting an attribute âEventToWorkOnâ in the attribute Browser
having an agent which looks for $EventToWorkOn==Event ! $usedinevent.contains(event)
it set the containter of the alias to âeventâ and sets $usedinevent=$usedinevent+âeventâ
So all my aliases end up nicely in the event container where I can sort the as I like to the different chapters adornments which set the corresponding attributes accordingly. And the work in the attribute browser with a defined stamp is pretty easy.
Iâm not aware of any Tinderbox operation that goes beyond a single file.
Update: Sorry if I misunderstood this to be a request to work with several files, which of course TB doesnât do, rather than to work with several notes, which is possible in other views and would (I agree) be useful in Attrib Browser.
At l(e)ast, it seems to have eventually made it on the rather upper priority-part of the agenda!?
@eastgate: That really would be THE killer feature ⌠turning water into wine ⌠lovers into worshippers ⌠well ⌠you get the idea. What can I say ⌠back to business
Iâm wondering what issue this solves? Scrivener is great for writing, not so good for understanding the interrelation of data. Tinderbox is reasonable for writing but without peer on freeform the data analysis side. My concern is that effort bled into making a better writing tool takes effort away from the analytical side, to Tinderboxâs loss. Personally, I donât mind a bit of work extracting info to pass into a writing-centric app )and itâs not hard to help those confused by this) but if it means less effort dev goes into the spatial hypertext/data analysis side Tinderbox will be the poorer for it. IMO, at least. Watching the tool evolve over 15 years, I can see how much the $Text space dev has happened at the expense of other more innovative features. I sense I may be a lone voice in the regards, but I think it worth speaking up for Tinderboxâs main USP.
That is quite a leap, from selecting multiple notes at once to writing a word processor
So for me, I use AB to see sets of notes. Often times Iâll notice interesting subsets, or sets that I havenât noticed before. So I want to select a few notes and stamp them.
You can select multiple notes in every other view. So clearly itâs useful. I donât suppose youâd be thrilled if eastgate removed the ability to select multiple notes in outline / map view.
Yeah, itâs a tradeoff. You spend a bit more time and effort massaging data in other apps and transferring information back and forth. I spend a bit more time effort and writing TB action code and scripts to make TB integrate with other tools I use. Neither approach is right, theyâre just right for our individual needs. fwiw Iâve tried every writing application for Mac, and Tinderbox is my favorite application to write in â which is amazing considering itâs not a âwriting application!â
Personally, I donât make a distinction between note-taking and writing. For me, note-taking is writing. Any note can grow and/or be combined into longer forms. Any long form text can be deconstructed into smaller notes. Separating the two activities creates a cognitive dissonance that is unhelpful for me. I fully appreciate that for other people, itâs important to keep those two activities cleanly separated.
So whatâs Tinderboxâs USP? I think anyone would be hard-pressed to distill it to a single, clear, universal phrase. It canât be all things to all people, but it is certainly many things to many people.
If the desire, as stated up-thread, is to be able to select/display multiple notes and edit them - in Scrivener-like fashion - I think it is a quite a jump in function: as Eastgate describes it, âThis is actually quite intricateâ. Still, Iâm just clarifying, not pushing back.
The USP? The maps (spatial hypertext), hypertextual tools, prototyping/inheritance and support for incremental formalisation. Not one thing as such, but something adds up to a wonderful exploratory/analytical space. As time goes by, I use $Text less (unless for source data) and attributes much more. Iâm not against people writing, lest readers mistakenly assume that. Going from v5 through to v7.5 the writing space ($Text) has had a lot of love. Itâs simply that with a small shop new features are a zero-sum game so I feel it worthwhile to speak up for some other features of the app, lest they appear unloved by users.
For what itâs worth, I think everyone here is making sensible points. As for myself:
I value the ability to select multiple notes in other views, specifically outline and map, and would like to be able to do that in attribute browser too. Mainly I do this to apply block operations â stamps, moves, QuickStamps, whatever else â rather than selecting the notes one by one.
I view Scrivener as a uniquely powerful tool for writing, and Tinderbox as unique powerful for organizing and connecting data and ideas. Each has a does-the-job version of the otherâs specialty â in Scrivener you can do some organization via folders, in Tinderbox you can do some writing and formatting â but I hope each development teach concentrates on each productâs comparative advantage.