Tree-type notes

 

GENERAL INFORMATION

 

As of version 0.90, KeyNote now supports a new kind of notes: a "tree-type" note. These notes come in addition to the original notes, which are still available.

 

The tree notes are more efficient, they load faster when you open the file, and allow you to organize information better. You can freely mix the old-style "plain" editor notes and tree notes within one file.

 

There is no limit to the number of "nodes" (i.e. separate notes, or "branches") in the tree. There is also no limit to the length of text that each note, or each tree "branch" can contain.

 

If you have used previous versions of KeyNote, please note that files wich contain tree-type notes cannot be opened in older versions of KeyNote. This is important if you want to exchange .KNT files with another KeyNote user. Ask them to upgrade! :)

 

 

CREATING TREE-TYPE NOTES

 

To create a tree-type note, do what you normally do to add a new note to the file: press Ctrl+N, or choose "New note" from the "Note" menu. In the "New Note" dialog box, click the "Type" drop-down list, and select "Multi-level tree". (Selecting "Simple Rich Text Editor" will create an old-style note without the tree.)

 

If you like, you can also click the "Properties" button to open a dialog box where you can specify many options for the note you are creating. (For instance, you can specify the font and background color for the tree text.) After you have finished configuring the properties, click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

 

Click OK to close the "New Note" dialog box and create the new note.

 

A new note will be created. The note will contain a tree with one node. You can add nodes to the tree, edit them and drag in the tree. (See below for information about tree functions and keyboard shortcuts.)

 

To switch from the editor to the tree, or from the tree back to the editor, press Ctrl+\ or press the "*" (asterisk) on the numeric keypad.

 

Once you have created a plain or a tree-type note, you cannot change its type. You can, however, edit all properties of the note at any time by pressing F4.

 

 

TREE FUNCTIONS

 

•        You can add an unlimited number of branches to the tree
•        There is no limit to how deep you can nest tree branches.
•        You can drag and drop branches in the tree.
•        You can sort the whole tree or a selected branch
•        You can specify all font properties for the tree text (F4)
•        You can change the background color of the tree (F4)
•        You can move nodes Up, Down, Left or Right (Shift+<arrow>)
•        You can rename nodes, or paste a node name from clipboard
•        You can show or hide the branch icons in the tree
•        You can save the tree structure to a file
•        You can export the contents of a single node in the tree.
•        The tree panel can be arrranged horizontally )to the left of the editor) or vertically (on top of the editor)
•        You can drag a tree node and drop it in a new location. You can also drag a node onto another note, to move the node there.

 

See also: Virtual nodes

 

All these functions are accessible via the right-click context menu in the tree, or via the "Tree" main menu. Most functions have keyboard shortcuts assigned to them.

 

COPYING OR MOVING BETWEEN NOTES

 

You can now copy or move antire subtrees from noe tree note to another, or even from one file to another. Start by right-clicking the tree and selecting "Transfer", and then "Copy Subtree" from the context menu. Next, move to the tree where you want to add the copied nodes. You can also open another KeyNote file (the nodes you have copied are retained in memory).

 

In the target tree, click the node below which you wish to add the copied subtree, and in the tree context menu select "Transfer", and then "Paste Subtree Here".

 

Note that the target tree must already have at least one node; otherwise you will not be able to paste nodes into it.

 

You can achieve the same result by clicking a subtree and dragging it to another tab - but of course this will only allow you to transfer nodes within a file.

 

To move nodes rather then copying them, you need to manually delete the original subtree after you have copied it.

 

 

CONFIGURING TREE SETTINGS

 

Some tree-related options can be specified separatey for each tree. To do this, press F4 (or choose "Properties" from the "Note" menu), then click the "Tree settings" tab. On this tab you can specify, for instance, the font and color properties for the tree, as well as the default name that will be used when creating new branches.

 

Many other tree-related settings are global, that is, they apply to ALL notes that contain trees, in all files. To edit these global settings, press F6 (or choose the "Default settings for Notes" command under the "Tools" menu), then click the "General settings" tab. There are many configuration options which enable to you tailor the behavior of the tree (and the editor) to your preferences.

 

 

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FOR TREE-RELATED COMMANDS:

 

To add a node to the tree:

               press Enter

To insert a node above current node:

               press Ins

To add a child to selected node:

               press Shift+Enter

To rename selected node:

               press Space or Shift+F2

To delete selected node:

               press Del

To delete all children of selected node:

               press Shift+Del

To move selected node:

               pressShift+<direction arrow>

               (e.g. Shift+Down arrow to move node down)

 

To switch focus from Note editor to tree:

               press Ctrl+\ or Shift+Tab

 

To switch focus from Note tree to editor:

               press Ctrl+\ or TAB

 

Click here for a complete list of keyboard shortcuts

 

TREE LIMITATIONS and DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TREE-TYPE AND PLAIN NOTES

 

Editing and editor settings:

               Each node ("branch") in the tree has its own formatted text and its own background color. All other editor settings are global FOR THE GIVEN NOTE. For instance, if you turn on the Word-Wrap function, all nodes in the tree will be word-wrapped. You cannot turn the word-wrap feature ON for some nodes, and OFF for other nodes. This shouldn't be a problem: in fact, since trees can contain even hundreds of nodes, it would be very confusing if each node had independent editor settings.

 

Export and Email functions:

               When exporting a tree-type note as plain text, contents of the whole tree are saved to a single text file. When exporting a tree-type note as RTF (Rich Text Format) file, each node is saved to a separate .RTF document. These documents are named automatically, using the names of the original tree nodes.

 

               When sending a tree-type note as email, you can only send it as plain text. Unlike plain, old-style notes, you cannot send a tree-type note as a single RTF attachment.

 

               In general, it is impossible to create a single RTF file which contains text from all nodes in a tree. It is only possible to create a plain text (*.TXT) file that way.

 

Clipboard capture:

               Tree-type notes CANNOT be used for clipboard capture. You must create a plain note for this purpose.

 

UNDO feature of the editor:

               After making some editing changes in node A, and then clicking another node (B) in the tree, you will not be able to Undo the changes in node A. This limitation is imposed by the editor itself, and a workaround is unlikely.

 

 

DRAG-AND-DROP OPERATIONS IN TREE

 

Each node in the tree can be dragged and dropped in a new position.

 

Dragging a node onto another node adds it as a child of this node,

 

If you hold down the SHIFT key while dropping a node, the node is inserted on the SAME LEVEL as the node onto which you have dropped it (rather than becoming a child node).

 

If you hold down the CTRL key while dropping a node onto a top-level (root) node, the node wil be placed as the FIRST TOP NODE in the tree.

 

Dragging a node or a subtree to another tab copies it to that tab (provided that the tab holds a tree-type note, of course)

 

If you drag a text or an RTF file from Windows Explorer onto the tree, the file will be added to the tree as a Virtual Node.

 

 

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

 

You can turn off the tree node icons for each tree independently. The icons cannot be changed and there will be no such possibility.

 

All nodes can contain text. There is no concept of a "folder" node as separate from an actual note. There is also no concept of a "root node", i.e. you can have as many 0-level nodes as you want. I think this approach is better than having separate "folder" and "note" branches, because a folder is merely an empty branch in the tree. KeyNote can put text in ANY branch, so each node in the tree can be a note AND a folder at the same time.

 

As you know from the previous versions of KeyNote, the program can remember the position of the caret in each note, and restore it when you open the file. The same is now true for trees: KeyNote can optionally remember which node in the tree was selected, and automatically jump to this node when you open the file later on.

 

You can make the tree wider or narrower by dragging the vertical "splitter" bar which divides the tree from the editor. Each note retains the tree width independently of other notes, and the width of the tree is always restored when you open a previously saved file. (If the size of the main KeyNote window is too small to make the tree as wide as it was previously, the tree is automatically narrowed to fit.)

 

Nodes in the tree can be moved with the keyboard. Hold down SHIFT while you click the arrows keys. You can move nodes UP/DOWN (within the list of siblings) or LEFT/RIGHT (Left: promotes the node 1 level Up; Right: demotes the node 1 level down.) By combining these moves, a node can be relocated to ANY possible position in the tree.

 

New nodes that you add to the tree can be named automatically. In the Note Properties dialog box, click the [?] button to see what is possible. For instance, when you create a new node in the tree, this node's number can be added to the name.