The only way I can find to navigate through a composite in Map View (i.e. move sequentially through every note in a composite to add text to each note) is to cmd-click on each one, then click (or opt-tab) in the text pane.
The only way I’ve found is to move efficiently between notes with the keyboard is to use Outline view – cmd-click on the first note, opt-tab, write text, cmd-shift-down. This works, but of course, it doesn’t work in Map view and composites are supposed to be a Map tool (e.g. you can’t create them in Outline view.)
So, what’s the shortcut to move within notes in a composite, please?
I don’t think there is such a shortcut at present. Feature Request?
It seems Cmd+Opt+up/down is not defined within Map view as up/down arrow, regardless of modifiers or none, map to hoist or drill down (i.e. go up/down one map level). Although original imagined in Outline use (I was one of the feature requesters), having just tested it also works in Chart view. Moreover, in these views you can Cmd+Opt+up/down navigate into/through a composite. You just can’t do that in Map view.
In Map view you can use left and right arrow keys to navigate the map in $OutlineOrder, though it’s likely the latter doesn’t reflect the visual top/bottom/left/right visual ordering of items.
I was hoping there would be something I just hadn’t found — it’s a bit fiddly having to keep swapping mouse and keyboard just to fill in a form (which is what composites are, I think).
I’ll submit a feature request.
As an aside for anyone else similarly afflicted by the need for mouse-avoidance, another workaround is:
Select the composite and press cmd-alt-x to bring up all the composite notes in reverse order in their own text windows.
cmd-` to cycle back and bring the window for the first note to the front, which reorders the windows in composite
You can then fill in the text of the first note and cmd-w to bring up the next one in order.
For more context, I’m testing recreating the concept of scene cards (from Story Genius) as composites. On the face of it, there are some potential useful benefits (for tracking POV, theme, altering scene order visually etc), but if the overhead filling them in is too high then it’s not worth it.
By Tinderbox standards, composites are very new. They are also a feature —like many others—that some will use a lot and others hardly at all if ever. So it is unsurprising, to me, that wrinkles like this emerge and I’m sure input to Eastgate on usability issues with composites will be welcomed.
Oh, your composite is intriguing, David. I’m working on fiction too, and I like the visual immediacy of this composite.
Hmmm … I’d been using Tinderbox for research (and working out how to link material to scenes, locations, plot points, etc) and less for working out scenes. I shall have to play …
