How to visualize a village?

  1. How have you entered the details about appearance? In the text, or in some attribute?

  2. Tinderbox Help has a short note on the attribute browser:

The Attribute Browser shows you the contents of any container in the current document, categorised by the values of a chosen attribute. By default the scope is whole-document.

The scope and appearance of the view are set via the Attribute Browser controls at the top of the view pane. By default all expect the first row of controls are hidden. The remainder of the controls can be revealed/re-hidden via a disclosure triangle on the control panel.

The Attribute Browser can use column view and as in other views the column data is editable.

For Set and List data types, categories are still single value notes list in every category (value) for which the note has a value of combination of values. Thus a note with more than one value may list several times.

Optionally, categories can show a count of the number of the items. By default this is for the viewā€™s chosen attribute but can also be for any of the attributes also displayed via column view If enabled, this summary figure is shown at the right end of the category bar. For Number-type attributes, a range of mathematical optional are also offered.

Dragging a note to a new category changes the noteā€™s value for that listed attribute to that of the category. For multi-value attributes, regardless of the category the dropped note receives all of the values for the attribute for the note listing after the dropped note. In such circumstances it can be useful to list the attribute as a column view item to see the full range of values allotted.

Items listed are drawn in $Color using $DisplayName. Badges are shown, and a link-drag widget is shown after the item name. The icon used for each item is as per Outline view, indicating the degree of text, recentness of edit and in/outbound links.

A link widget for dragging links is drawn to the right of the title of the selected note.

OK, so we have some characters and all except one have a value for a user attribute HairColour. Like so, as seen in outline+column view:

So thatā€™s the test data, now to set up Attribute Browser view:

As the scope of the view Iā€™ve select the container ā€˜Charactersā€™ (the default is the whole document). We want to see what hair colours are used so $HairColour is the attribute we select as the viewā€™s subject matter (you can use the search bo, as shown, to locate the correct attribute group and name in the two pop-ups.

Iā€™ve also selected a ā€˜countā€™ summary. This means each category banner in the main part of the view shows a count of how many (in-scope) notes use that value for the given attribute. Thus we see that two characters ā€˜Bobā€™ and ā€˜Caroleā€™ have the $HairColour value of ā€˜Blondeā€™ and that the ā€˜Blondeā€™ category banner as a total of ā€˜2ā€™.

Does that help give an idea of how the basics works? In summary, Attribute Browser view takes a user-set scope (default: whole doc) and then for a single attribute it lists all in-scope notes divided into groups that have the same value for that attribute.

The view has further controls and options but they can be ignored for now.

Thank you for your patience. Your example made it very clear. I had entered some characters and added them to the container Village. I wasnā€™t looking in that container, I was looking in the whole document and had also entered ā€œblondeā€ in the search field. I hadnā€™t understood that I did not need to enter a specific search term (the box there was too beguiling:grinning:)
Also, from your example it would seem more useful if I were to have a container Character and to have an attribute of location so I could sort out those who were in the village, say, as opposed to the castle and see what I needed to recall (like who was it had the illegitimate child or was accused of murder.) Although I do rather like having a container for each location. I can see the people clumped together there. So (Iā€™m obviously thinking as I type, sorry), I could do that, put the right characters in the right location container and each would have attributes such as hair etc, but then I donā€™t see how I could use the attribute browser as your example showed - it would only search in the location container when Iā€™d want it to search all characters. (Iā€™ll bet youā€™re going to tell me there is a wayā€¦)
On a (slightly) separate note, is there a quick way of searching for, say, a name or every note containing a nearby village or a certain date? (Am I right in thinking that this is where an agent comes in? If so, Iā€™ll get to wrestling with those a little later. If not, Iā€™d be happy to learn!).
Once again, however, I must really thank you for your patience with me.

For simple one-time searches, see Edit ā–ø Find (āŒ˜-F)

For persistent searches, see agents.

Also relevant: you can filter an outline to include only notes that fit some specified criteria.

Ah! Another menu item I hadnā€™t seen!! Many thanks. Iā€™m beginning to get a better idea of what I can doā€¦