More ideas (was: Re: Feature request)

[Nathan Kelley]

To OmniOutliner Users <omnioutliner-users at omnigroup.com>,

>> From: Tim Hurson <tim at timhurson.com>,
> From: Greg Titus <greg at omnigroup.com>

>> One of the things I really loved about MORE was the ability to split a 
>> bullet into two with command return, and ocversely to concatenate two 
>> bullets with command delete. Any chance OmniOutliner will be adding 
>> those functions soon?
>
> I've just added the first half of this feature (splitting), and it 
> occurs to me that it might be more natural to simply make return do 
> this (instead of command-return).
>
> (1) If you were editing plain text and hit return in the middle of a 
> line, it'd split the rest of the line onto a new line - this is what 
> people generally expect to happen with the return key. (2) Microsoft 
> Word outlines work this way. (3) We already have command-return used to 
> insert a newline in the current item.
>
> Is anyone attached to the current behavior of return -- simply adding a 
> new item despite where your selection is? Anyone have any arguments 
> against a change?
>
> On another note, what would you expect to happen if you did a 
> command-delete to concatenate when you were working with a document 
> with multiple columns? My first impulse is to concatenate the contents 
> of the column that you are in with the same column in the previous row, 
> but only delete the row if all other columns are empty, if not leaving 
> the rest of the row as is. I.e.:
>
> * xyz			1
> * abc		2
>
> turns into:
>
> * xyzabc		1
> *			2
>
> Instead of eliminating the second bullet point. Any thoughts?

IMHO it's all good, although I'd like to expand on this a little:

You could also map the [Enter] key to insert a new item without 
splitting, even if editing text at the time. AFAIK all MacOS-X-capable 
Macintoshes should have a keyboard that has both a [Return] and an 
[Enter]. I would like the option to switch these under the Keyboard pane 
in preferences, as I would prefer to use [Return] to insert new items 
and [Enter] to split, but the above behaviour as you suggested would be 
the default.

Additional ideas to allow for powerful concatenation (these are NOT 
feature requests, just ideas posted for discussion that might be worth 
implementing):

- [Shift]+[Delete] key (backwards delete) to concatenate all text after 
the cursor of the field being currently edited into the same field in 
the previous item. If used on an item when not being edited, 
concatenates text of all fields to equivalent fields in the previous 
item.

- [Shift]+[Del>] key (forwards delete) to concatenate all text before 
the cursor of the field being currently edited into the same field in 
the previous item. If used on an item when not being edited, 
concatenates text of all fields to equivalent fields in the previous 
item.

- Use of [Option] as part of the above combinations allows for 
concatenation into the next item, rather than previous.

- If multiple items are selected, concatenation would occur to the first 
or the last item, depending what option used. If "first" or "last" were 
defined based on selection order, that would allow for customised 
concatenations.

[Command]+[Return] could keep its' current function, and 
[Command]+[Delete] could remove the current item (currently just beeps). 
Note that, at least on the iBook, [Shift]+[Del>] is generated by 
[Fn]+[Delete].

BTW, kudos to the OmniOutliner team for excellent work on the 1.2 
release! The decision to purchase a license for it was too easy :-)

Cheers, Nathan.

________________________________________________
Nathan "Phyax" Kelley

    email | phyax at runbox.com, phyax at mac.com
      icq | 4618849
    yahoo | phyax
________________________________________________