[Ann] CintaNotes 2.0 early preview - Tabs & Links to notes

[Thomas Lohrum]

I don't understand. What do you mean with "anywhere you click"?

I mean that this command applies to the whole note, not just its text. There's no reason why it should be available only when you right-click in the text area. I guess it should be there even if you right-click on a blank area of the edit dialog.

To me it would be ok to have the item available in the context-menu of title and text only. Probably because i'll use the shortcut most of the times. Btw, the context-menu of the title is missing "Insert Date and Time F5".

[CintaNotes Developer]

Yes, the "Insert Note Link" shall be replaced with "Edit Note Link" (better "Edit Link Target"; see comments below). However, i would limit such functionality to a selection, that will select one link only, nothing else. When the selection contains plain text and one or more links, no link action should be offered at all. Also we should think of editing in such a way, that i simply place the caret to a link and open the context menu thereafter or use a shortcut right away. That is CN must recognize, when the caret is on a link and act as such.

Huge thanks for the thoughtful remarks. Could you elaborate why you think we must require that no extra non-link text is selected? I don't see why CN can't just automatically snap selection to the link when a link command is activated.

How do we define "editing a link"? Is it editing the link target only or also the link's caption? Probably it should change the link target only, since i can edit the link's caption simply by editing it's text. Thus the menu caption actually should be "Edit Link Target" (rather than Edit Link). The shortcut should be Ctrl+Alt+L.

Agreed 100%. However I very much like that all commands end with "<Verb>.. Note Link" and wouldn't want to lose this symmetry (that facilitates learning). Maybe we could also rephrase the commands as follows: "Create Note Link", "Retarget Note Link", "Delete Note Link". (Note also that I used "create" instead of "insert" - in other languages the meaning of "insert" and "paste" can be very similar, I have just had this problem when I translated this menu to Russian.)

Imo, no need for handling a collection of links in one single step. Actions should only apply on a single link. Either by placing the caret to the link or by selecting a link.

Probably you're right, there's no need to overcomplicate things at this point.

[CintaNotes Developer]

The arrow's main purpose is to support standard windows gui behaviour, thus meeting the user's expectations. Let's add an arrow and limit its result to the first N entries, e.g. 20-50.

Sorry but I don't quite visualize this arrow you are talking about. This popup is almost like tags autocomplete dropdown - and there's no down arrow there, and no one complained

How would you select notes with an empty title anyway? Imo, don't show them at all. To select a link a title must be provided.

That makes sense. Agreed!

[CintaNotes Developer]

Agreed. I have added a comment to the request http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/342 ... ual-files/

Thanks!

[CintaNotes Developer]

No. With "Delete Note Link" i really want the caption and the link target removed both together. I would like to see this in the context menu also, not just by means of pressing DEL.

A menu "convert link to text" is different. It actually removes the link target and should be provided as a separate item.

I'm afraid I must disagree here. There's already a context menu command "Delete" which will do exactly that. The "Delete Note Link" command will delete the link, but leave the caption text.

[CintaNotes Developer]

I will retest with the next beta.

OK. I've found that paths were compared in case-sensitive manner - this can be the reason of the problem.
Hopefully in the next beta we will have the SimpleNote sync ready for testing as well - are you planning to use this functionality?

OK. Btw, after thinking about the feature i might actually use it in combination with Outlook

Great Yes, when you come to think about it, there are some quite powerful things and workflows that you can build with this.

The best is to always register the protocol together with the installation - not bothering the user at all. That would also eliminate other issues discussed here. UAC should be supported at some time, though.

Seems that we are in perfect agreement here;)

[CintaNotes Developer]

When I select the ALL tab, the sort order off every tab gets reset to that used by ALL.
I see this is the documented behavior, but it loses a lot I have set up.
Nod

Thanks Nod for this feedback. I agree that this is unintuitive. I think the following behavior would be the best:
- Don't overwrite individual tab settings when multiple tabs are selected;
- Remember the "All" filters separately.

[CintaNotes Developer]

At the top LH corner of CN there are two 'All's.
They have different meanings - all notes with selected tags - all notes in a selected tab - I think.
I can't help but think they would be better renamed. But what to? They are both logically correct named as 'All' but potentially confusing.
What does anyone else think? Nod

Well actually they mean "All notes regardless of tags" and "All notes from all sections"
I agree that naming both options "All" is less than perfect, but being non-native speaker can't come up with a better idea. So I join in on your question.

[CintaNotes Developer]

The thing is, by clicking on "All", you've just wiped out the filters you've set up in all your tabs. This is not a happy result. I may know a note can't be in 8 of my sections where I've carefully set up unique filters, but their filters will be wiped anyways.

Mark, thanks for your opinion! This will be fixed in the next beta.

[CintaNotes Developer]

The list of linked notes when creating a link (Ctrl+Alt+L) is sorted descending, but should be sorted ascending.

Confirmed, and fixed) Thanks!

[Thomas Lohrum]

Yes, the "Insert Note Link" shall be replaced with "Edit Note Link" (better "Edit Link Target"; see comments below). However, i would limit such functionality to a selection, that will select one link only, nothing else. When the selection contains plain text and one or more links, no link action should be offered at all. Also we should think of editing in such a way, that i simply place the caret to a link and open the context menu thereafter or use a shortcut right away. That is CN must recognize, when the caret is on a link and act as such.

Huge thanks for the thoughtful remarks.

You're welcome!

Could you elaborate why you think we must require that no extra non-link text is selected? I don't see why CN can't just automatically snap selection to the link when a link command is activated.

Why would you want to select a link in first place anyway? You can just move the mouse cursor over the link, right-click and there we go. At this point CN could/should select the link itself. If the user selects some text, we should not do some kind of auto snapping, unless we consider word boundaries. That is spaces, etc. before/after the link.

Thomas

[CintaNotes Developer]

Hi,
is there a licence key for beta testers? I'd like to see this note linking in action.

Hello Wiktor,
oh sorry I completely forgot about this..

===CINTANOTES LICENSE===
CintaNotes 2.0 Beta Tester (support@cintanotes.com)
AWYWA2-4DCGXA-8LN9CZ-XCKXH7-SJBKHC-WS75JZ-T8WX9R-KB7PWY-VQ9YTD-MHPHL6-KTYDF7

The key above will be valid till 17.12.2012.

And BTW, since you've been active with Polish translations, I'd be happy to give you a full Personal License - please just drop me a line to support@cintanotes.com.

[Thomas Lohrum]

How do we define "editing a link"? Is it editing the link target only or also the link's caption? Probably it should change the link target only, since i can edit the link's caption simply by editing it's text. Thus the menu caption actually should be "Edit Link Target" (rather than Edit Link). The shortcut should be Ctrl+Alt+L.

Agreed 100%. However I very much like that all commands end with "<Verb>.. Note Link" and wouldn't want to lose this symmetry (that facilitates learning). Maybe we could also rephrase the commands as follows: "Create Note Link", "Retarget Note Link", "Delete Note Link". (Note also that I used "create" instead of "insert" - in other languages the meaning of "insert" and "paste" can be very similar, I have just had this problem when I translated this menu to Russian.)

You suggest:
Create Note Link
Retarget Note Link
Delete Note Link
Copy Note Link
Convert Link to Text

I understand your argument. To me it is a touch to much "Note Link", even when you consider that "Create Note Link" will not appear the same time with the other three. Personally i prefer a more natural text, like i'd use in speech.

Example:
Create Link
Edit Link Target
Delete Link
Copy Link
Convert Link to Text

Uups, while reading my post over and over again, i begin to like your suggestion. I just laugh about myself Ok, maybe you're right. Of course feel free to consider my suggestion. What would we use for "convert link to text"? Maybe "Remove Target from Note Link". Though, maybe with this last single item we could stick with "Convert Link to Text". It appears to be more understandable.

[Thomas Lohrum]

The arrow's main purpose is to support standard windows gui behaviour, thus meeting the user's expectations. Let's add an arrow and limit its result to the first N entries, e.g. 20-50.

Sorry but I don't quite visualize this arrow you are talking about. This popup is almost like tags autocomplete dropdown - and there's no down arrow there, and no one complained

I can not tell what is best. Just, that first time i created a link i was confused. Maybe this will resolve, after no longer highlighting of "Create new Note", which you confirmed to fix. Ok, i suggest to do nothing at the moment and have a look at it with the next beta.

[Thomas Lohrum]

No. With "Delete Note Link" i really want the caption and the link target removed both together. I would like to see this in the context menu also, not just by means of pressing DEL. A menu "convert link to text" is different. It actually removes the link target and should be provided as a separate item.

I'm afraid I must disagree here. There's already a context menu command "Delete" which will do exactly that. The "Delete Note Link" command will delete the link, but leave the caption text.

So i need to delete the remaining text myself? Not sure, whether this will be easy to understand or not. At least we could do the following: select the link's caption, so that after deleting the link (removing the target) it takes me a single key press to delete the selection.

[Thomas Lohrum]

I will retest with the next beta.

OK. I've found that paths were compared in case-sensitive manner - this can be the reason of the problem.

Today i noticed, that i have two entries in the file menu, though i only have one database.
1 cintanotes.db
2 C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\CintaNotes\cintanotes.db

The bug might be the reason for this. I will get rid of the second entry by editing the settings file's "recentfiles.list" after a fix will be available.

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hopefully in the next beta we will have the SimpleNote sync ready for testing as well - are you planning to use this functionality?

No. Where should i sync to? I use one device only. Especially i don't want my data stored somewhere in the cloud. That's one of the major reasons i use CN, because the data is on my machine, where it belongs to

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi, is there a licence key for beta testers? I'd like to see this note linking in action.

Hello Wiktor,

please backup your database file, before installing the 1.9 beta. Otherwise you might not be able to switch back to 1.8.5. And 1.9 is just an early preview, even though it looks pretty stable.

Thomas

[ChrisCN]

:?: Is the location of the database file part of the link information?
- is it relative or absolute?
- what if the portable app folder has different drive names on different machines?
- what can't be done without breaking the link (move, rename,...)?

Notebook's unique ID (UID) is part of the link. CN can open the link if it has the notebook with this UID open (it appears in File menu list).
I guess this pretty much answers all your questions - you can move the DB anywhere you want, as long as it remains
open in CN you will be able to open the link.

Thanks

What about using external links?
If I click a link to a CN note - lets say 'in Outlook' -> must the corresponding database be loaded into CN to work?

[CintaNotes Developer]

Remark: I think cluttering of the context menu is no problem, because items like "Edit link target", "Delete link" or "Convert link to text" will be available only, when the caret is on a link anyway.

The caret or the mouse? Or both?