New user - problems working with multiple windows

Thanks a lot for explaining that. I know I have a strong academic approach when learning (I think James called id “systemic”?) but it really helps me :slight_smile: And I love the supportive mood in this forum, that alone convinces me that my choice with tinderbox was a good one.

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Decided to delete this as duplicative of points I’d made in preceding posts, notably this one.

Since mine is the OP, I’ve decided to chime in.

While I love Tinderbox, the inability to see multiple parts of a document at the same time has forced me to stop using it. Clicking on a tab to switch focus is too disruptive and forces me to memorize what I’m looking at before I switch.

Sorry to learn that it’s netted out this way for you!

As is evident from previous thread, my preferences are the same as yours. Being able to see several windows at once is central to the way I work with info-rich programs.

For me the net is still clearly in the other direction, but I share your wish that this particular aspect were otherwise – or, more positively and hopefully, that workarounds will continue to evolve.

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I learned today another great application of TB where having two outlines in view would be great: I tried to review and correct a letter, exploded it into single arguments and tried to rearrange it. To have both views in parallel I then used a texteditor and TB in parallel, something which would be so much nicer if I could do it in TB alone.

Question for me as a newbie, any chance we can file that as a feature request at some dedicated space or is this done in this community here where eastgate is aware about the topics and taking part in the discussions?

I’m reading.

You can do this in Tinderbox; I do it every day.

  1. Divide your letter into topical segments if it’s not already divided. You’ll soon get used to doing this as a matter of course.

  2. Want to see how they look overall? Select all the notes in the letter; Tinderbox will display them as a continuous text.

  3. Want to try moving section 6 to the front? Do it – and then select the neighboring notes to see how they flow together.

Of course, if you want to use Tinderbox with other tools, you should! That’s the whole point of WinterFest http://www.artisanalSoftwareFestival.com/! For example, just now I was selecting notes about the important Congressional race in Minnesota’s second district for a Swing Left newsletter. The notes are in Tinderbox, but the newsletter isn’t, and I wanted to make sure the extracts looked right in their target format. So, I fired up BBEdit alongside Tinderbox, and then fired up the newsletter’s content management system alongside BBEdit.

Hi, (in my moderator’s ‘hat’) the general convention here is this is a user-to-user forum so suggestions made here aren’t being made to Eastgate but rather to fellow users. However, Eastgate does post here and sometimes suggestions are taken forward from user posts. However, that shouldn’t be assumed to always be the case. If you genuinely wish to see a new feature it is worthwhile writing to Tinderbox support (info@eastgate.com) making your case - with an explanatory use case if needed. So, if a fellow user here suggests you mail in a request, they aren’t being unfriendly but simply pointing you at the right channel.

In the same context it is worth noting that this forum is not Tinderbox support. For real problems, show-stoppers, etc. email support at info@eastgate.com as that will generally get you faster response. Your fellow users are a better resource for the ‘how to’ aspect of things or where to find features, as we’ve no visibility under the hood of the app (thus sometimes you may get suggested to write to support instead).

I think the issue of shared window focus can now be regarded as a known issue. Quite, how/if it may change I can’t say but I likely doesn’t need raising as a new issue. Note: the v6+ app re-write uses a single window UI metaphor, in no small part because there was vocal demand for that (not least, it seems to be the current style of Mac apps). Multiple window support was added later though they currently share a single selection, courtesy of the original design. I suspect making (2 or more) windows ‘stand-alone’ in selection terms may have unseen complications so whilst desirable, it may not be sitting at the top of the to do stack. HTH.

I should have been more vocal (the other way) back at the time! :wink:
But I am devising various work-arounds.

Ok, that feature is completely new for me. Great :slight_smile:

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You can also export the selected notes as a text document, format them nicely, and print them

I just encountered this problem also. I teach one of my environmental science sections online and there are going to be more in the future. Those of you who have taught online will understand that student “discussions” in threads are a very important part of it and, as the instructor, I need to post to the discussion without overwhelming it.

What I’ve been doing is to copy and paste the most relevant snippets of the student discussions into a TB note and creating another note for my ideas as they arise and the discussion text I will post. I really need to see the student discussion snippets as I’m writing my text, because my memory isn’t capable of holding it all in my brain, so I’ve tried using two windows.

As others have noted, if you are in a note then go to the other window, it jumps to the text of the same note in the other window. I guess I’m asking whether anyone has developed any better solutions to this issue during the past year? Tabs won’t work for what I’m doing and exporting the student discussions to a text file for viewing is inelegant and doesn’t allow me to further make notes in that discussion that will be registered in the TB note.

Any new ideas or any chance this feature might be added (I don’t know if it is even possible, given the coding)?

I run into situations like this and they are when I use opt+cmd+x to pull up a text window.

These text windows are not full scale windows with a view and note pane. They are just the note text and key attributes. It’s very easy to open and arrange several of them off to the side of my document where they can be used for reference while I do my work.

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I commend @bcrane’s solution. But, as I recall, the if the note selected is in scope of the view of a different tab, when that tab is selected it shifts focus. However, if the tabs have different scope - e.g. each focuses on a different container/map, then they retain their own focus when switching tabs.

I had no idea about this view and it seems to work without switching notes! Thank you so much Brian and Mark!

I would very much welcome independent selection between windows. In addition to going against (my) expected behavior, it can lead to weird corner cases such as the one in this video, where switching from tab 1 to tab 2 and then back again changes the selection in tab 1:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1hqk_QCYpwjiMHJxOYbCgY1su4m-z9QdM