A feature that I am surprised is cannot find in TB is “Create new note as child”, preferably with a keyboard shortcut, or in the context menu so I could right click on a note and then select it. This is something I would use regularly for creating the first child of a note (subsequent children are easy) and given that the menu contains “Create agent as child” I would expect it to be available. Or have I just missed it?
option-shift-return works for me!
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There are two shortcuts (both building off Return ( 
) as the key for making a new note:
- Make new note as last child. Shift+Return ( ⇧+↩). Holding down Shift with the note menu open does update the menu item from Create Note to Create Child Note. If in Map view the shifted label is greyed out—see below
- Make new note as first child. Shift+Option+Return ( ⇧+⌥+↩). Oddly pressing both modifier keys doesn’t update the Note menu.
These options don’t work in Map view, presumably as there’s little point in making a note in a place you can’t see.
However, the menu to Create Agent As Child does do that in Map view. I’m not sure if that is intended or not.
In most other non-analysis views (i.e. all except Crosstabs, Hyperbolic, Table, and AB view) child items are in scope of the view so the options should be available. In the other views, the child options are suppressed for that same reason as on the Map, the new items would not show up in the current view.
Thank you. I had been looking for this option in the menus and had not discovered the keystrokes.
I am not sure I agree that there is no point in creating a child note in map view. I got used to working in map view all the time (though I recently started using outline view a bit more) and to create the first child I often created a new note and then dragged it on top of another note.
Taking your point into account, in Map view, it might be useful if shift-enter (or some other keystroke/context menu command) created a child note and shifted the view into the parent note so that the children could be seen.
Or, select the container-to-be in the map and press the down-arrow (↓). This opens the (currently empty) child map, click in the map to set focus, then press Return () to create a new note on the new map.
I agree with not being sure there’s no point. There is a point. If I want to rapidly put a new note into this container, then there should be a quick way to do it without having to change levels on the map or run off to another view, or create-then-drag a note, or any of the suggested ways.
One difficulty: I think it’s a bad idea if the selected note is not visible in the current view. A lot of Tinderbox works through feedback: you press Delete and the note vanishes. You choose “red” from the color menu and the note changes color.
I do sort-of like the idea of Create Child Note working by first zooming into the container, then creating the child note…
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Your point about visual feedback is well taken.
The scenario I have in mind is that I have imported a group of references from Bookends into TB, creating a note for each one. Then, with BE displaying the PDF, I make notes in TB. So far, I have been making notes in the text field of each reference, which can lead to some long notes each of which covers a number of different topics. However, I am thinking it would be better to create a series of separate notes inside each reference, so that different ideas are in different notes so I configured the Reference prototype so that these “Reading notes” inherit bibliographic data from the parent reference. One reason for this is that, when I have finished taking notes on a series of references, I can then drag the Reading notes out of the Reference notes (or create aliases - I have not decided on the best way to do this) and group them according to subjects or whatever organization suits what I am trying to write, without losing the information on where each note comes from.
One advantage of using TB for this is that, in one reference I might have a dozen different points, each in a separate note, but they will all contain the necessary bibliographic reference and a link back to both the reference note in TB and to the reference in BE, without my having to type this in a dozen times.
Of course, as I have now learned, it is easier to do this part of the workflow in Outline view (thank you, Mark Anderson, for pointing this out) and I shall probably continue to do that. However, I can imagine circumstances where it would be convenient to do it in Map view. In that case, a keystroke to turn a note into a container, zoom in and create a new note would be useful. But it is a small point.
Thanks to all for your help.
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I’ve split this thread so the fine detail of using other apps can carry on (and be found later by others) without creating thread drift here.
Note: this admin edit implies no censure of anyone contributing thus far (lest it appear otherwise!), just doing a bit of tidying in the aisles. 
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