Hi all,
I’m just a beginner user of TB, I wish some help to understand if I can get from it this kind of thing:
Image I’ve these notes:
Note 1
Note 2
Note 3
Note 4
Note 5
Now, Note 1 and Note 3 have links to other notes.
May I have (and, if yes, how to obtain) in the outline view a list of all the notes that have links to other notes and - indented below each note - the list of these linked notes?
E.g.: Note 1 has link to Note 3 and 5; Note 3 has link to Note 2 and 1.
Note 1
— Note 3
— Note 5
Note 3
— Note 2
— Note 1
I know that I can display links via “View\Browse Links” but I would rather have a view of this kind.
I’d recommend this thread as it seems to be trying to achieve the same end using aliases. Note though that aliases can have their own links, discrete from those of their original, so I’m not sure aliases in outlines is a good way to indicate links and I don’t think this scale well past a few 10s of items.
Also, how does your method differentiate linked notes from actual children? If you want more of an overlay listing, you could experiment with Hover Expressions, using action code to set a list of linked items.
I think what would suit would be to be able to use Roadmap view in a way not currently possible. That is to have a torn-off Roadmap re-focus itself to display the currently selected note’s links. For now that’s an idea and a feature request for someone to make.
Why not use a map? Maps are designed for visualizing links. Your hierarchy is flat, it appears from your narrative, so it seems you are looking to portray relationships among notes on the same level of an outline.
I concur with the last. Don’t overlook maps simply because one is more used to outlines. For instance, here is your data from above in a Map with visible links:
As ‘Note 3’ is highlighted its outbound links are also enhanced (they’re actually animated on screen).
Thanks Mark and Paul for giving me some guidance on what to think about.
Yes, map gives to links a more immediate understanding, of course this implies that notes are not many.
Anyway, I’ll read carefully the threads you’ve suggested to me.
TB is a very special program, with a very different approach from any other software I have used up to now. But it is also very sophisticated and needs proper insight.
I’m glad you noticed that aspect, as at scale screen size and performance _may_become an issue. I’d stress that for most uses maps are great but for large numbers of sibling notes (high 00s or 000s) an outline with some nesting tends to work better. Still, the Map is Tinderbox’s best feature and well worth trying until it’s clear you may need to use a different arrangement due to issues of scale.
This thread reminded me of a passage I recently read in Mark Bernstein’s third edition of The Tinderbox Way. I hope he doesn’t mind my quoting extensively here:
Containers in Tinderbox Maps
“Containers simplify a Tinderbox map by sweeping details map out of the way and into their own map. The parts retain their individual identity but are replaced in the map by their container. Crucially, moving a note inside a container doesn’t break its links.
Containers can express a variety of relationships.
Small containers may represent a simple composite. In a list of sources, we might perhaps have several editions of the same book; placing all the editions inside a container that represents the book helps keep these bibliographic minutiae from adding complexity to our daily work. The children of a container are a part of a larger whole.
The container may represent a collection of notes with a common purpose. For example, a container might hold notes about Tasks that we plan to do.
The container may represent a specific context to which the notes it holds pertain. In a narrative, containers might represent events or episodes—the Armory Show or the US election of 1912. In the map, the container stands for the entire event; if more detail is wanted, we zoom into the container to explore the notes inside.
The container provides a viewport that gives us a partial glimpse into the notes it contains. These notes are drawn at smaller scale and with less detail than notes in the main map, but we can drag those notes into the main map if we desire, and we can just as easily drag additional notes from the map into the container.
We can supplement or replace the viewport with a summary table that lists pertinent attributes of the container’s children, or with a plot that graphs some particularly interesting attribute of the contents”
Excerpt From: Mark Bernstein. “The Tinderbox Way 3rd Edition final.” iBooks.
This book is highly recommended reading for both new and very-long-term Tinderbox users.
