(1) I am still getting frustrated by the way I can enter a container in map view and see a blank screen, and it is a pain finding out where the notes are, zooming right out, and then zooming in again. My ideal solution would be to be able to define a particular note, and then either (a) whenever I open the map it is on, the map centres on this note; or (b) I can press a key or select a menu item and immediately be taken to this note.
Maybe there is some way to do this, but if there is, I have not found it.
(2) As I add notes to a map, I quite often find that I want to create a space for new notes in the middle of a map. If there are notes off screen it is often necessary to zoom out, drag the notes down, and then zoom back in again to the right place. It would be useful to be able to select a note, and then have a command “select all notes that are north, south, east or west of these”, so that they can be moved without worrying that there is something out of sight I have missed.
Press cmd-opt-ctrl in any map view, it will do a “zoom out” and show you all children of that container (or the root)
Once you know where the errant notes are:
a) use /View/Arrange/Cleanup… on selected notes.
b) If you don’t want to relocate any notes, then switch to Outline view.
I see your post was deleted - I received your reply via email. In short - I can only relay my own experience; which is that although I was initially pulled into Tinderbox due to the Map View, I’ve lately been spending the vast majority of my time in Outline (and sometimes Attribute) View. The power and speed of working with your notes increases exponentially as you familiarize yourself with the under-the-hood tools that Tinderbox offers, ready for picking. There are SO many ways to manage your data once you move into that paradigm - particularly running edicts/stamps/agents, working in Action Code Script, and so on - that requiring to see all the notes within a Container in Map View will suddenly strike you as being something of the distant past.
Not to sound patronizing - I myself have used Tinderbox for what - 4 years? - in fits and starts and tiny steps up. Only in the past month have I been getting to grips with - and deploying - its great power. To be fair, I had spent a ton (tonne?) of time in the process of bringing in notes from a dozen different sources, and pouring them carefully into Tinderbox.
Trust me, it gets better. Suddenly, and really fast.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I agree with the fact that Map view would act as an introduction once you know your way around the whole system.
I deleted my previous posts and emailed the devs with some feature suggestions instead.
Learning how to use every feature is an interesting journey indeed!
For me learning about the features goes hand-in-hand with rewiring my brain and being willing to change my perspective and lens on how I approach things, e.g. I now primarily thing in attributes (funny enough, this has spilled over to most aspects of my life). This whole process has mad me more efficient, effective, and has opened me to a universe that I did not know existed; well to be fair I know it existing but, but I thought it was the unattainable 5th or 8th dimension. Once the curtain started to be pulled back so may things, computer wise, are become self-evident.
I must be missing something. Cmd-Opt-Ctrl shows me all the notes, but what then? I don’t want to rearrange them, I just want to see them at a size where I can read them. As soon as I let go of Cmd-Opt-Ctrl, I see a blank map again. The only solution is to start at one place and systematically move the sliders so I explore every bit of the map until I find a note, and from there I can see other notes easily enough. That is slow and very frustrating. Even being able to use a keystroke, “Go to any note” would be useful, because once I have one note in view, I will know where I am in the map and can easily navigate to the note that I want. It is just seeing a completely blank map that is a problem.
For me, outline view is not the solution. at least not the way I am using TB at the moment. If I am using outline view, I might as well view the data in Bookends, where I can see lists of references. The value of TB for me is being able to visualize the relations between lots of notes (which started out as Bookends references).
I take the point about learning TB, and there did come a point where I suddenly understood the real basics and could use it. I guess there will be further eureka moments later on too. However, when at an early stage, there is a trade-off between investing in learning more deeply abut TB, trusting that there will be a later payoff, and actually getting some work done using what knowledge I do have.
