Shift items/content between Data Explorer and Item Details (in both directions)

[Spliff]

From Content to Tree: already perfect

- You select text content, then do ^c (copy) or ^x (cut)

- You navigate to the target item

- "Edit - Paste Special - Paste Text"
(This creates a new child item "beneath" the target item, with the content being your selection (as if you did ^v there), and with the first line/paragraph of your selection replicated as the item title, so that first line/paragraph is now existant two times: as item title, and as first paragraph of the text; it's debatable if this duplication is the very best solution in every situation, but then, we might then want to change the title, and then it's obviously wanted that the first paragraph has not been shifted to the tree, but replicated to it, so the current way seems best indeed)

- OR "Edit - Paste Special - One Item per Line"
(This creates multiple child items "beneath" the target item, one each for every line/paragraph in your selection, being titles respectively by that very line/paragraph, and with no content, logically; blanklines are skipped)

From Tree to Content: some wish for (easy) improvement

- You select 2 or more items, then you do ^c (copy) or ^x ("cut": in fact, after the paste, these "cut" items will be preserved, so you have then to delete them ({del}); considering that UR's functionality described here functions flawlessly, too, and that on the user side, there are TWO alternatives for choice, ^c OR ^x, I think that after ^x, the then "paste" command should indeed make disappear the selected items from their position, all the more so since in case of user "error", they will be available for retrieval within UR's bin)

- You navigate to the target item, go to content field (!)

- "Edit - Paste Special - Paste Text"
((^v instead would insert links (!) to the items instead))
(The other entries in that sub-menu are greyed-out here, with current focus in content field)
(This pastes the item-titles only into the content field, whilst any text of the items is lost (!) though, whilst it should be easy to split the command into "Paste Text - Titles only" and "Paste Text - with Content", since the necessary gathering algorithm is already implemented.)

The current solution for this is quite awkward, since you can consolidate the text bits, but within a new item only, and which will be created as a child item of your target item, whilst in many - I'm tempted to say: most? - use cases, you would want to just append your gathered text bits (together with their original item titles) into or to the already existant content of your target item itself, so in this - what I'd call the "regular" - workflow, you have then to manually select the whole content of the new item (^a, then ^c), then go to your target item, go to its content field, do the necessary ^v (or first, ^{end}, then ^v), go back to the unwanted, newly created, "intermediate" item, and delete that.

The current way of doing this might even be preserved, since it's already there, and some users might want it that way, but I'm sure most users would prefer to have it SIMPLE, additionally (!), as described above, so that when there is one item, or there are several items, copied (^c) or cut (^x), i.e. in the clipboard, AND the content field of some other item (i.e. the "target") has focus, the above-mentioned commands should be available from that sub-menu: "Paste Text - Titles only" and "Paste Text - with Content" (where, as indicated, Paste Text - Titles only" would correspond to the current entry "Paste Text")


Aside: It's interesting to see that freely moving elements from "content" to "inter-titling", EDIT: and vice versa, of course, and the alleged absence of this double functionality in 2-/3-pane "outliners" has always been the core argument of advocates for 1-pane "outliners" for the latter, and their core criticism against the former... whilst nowadays, there isn't a single, current one of the latter left (just some very old, (now) free, and with their development being stalled 10 or more years ago): Thus, the benefits of the former seem to outweigh those of the latter by far. ;-)

As described, the problem "from content to tree" has already been resolved perfectly by UR, it's just in the opposite direction in which currently UR's "workflow" isn't smooth enough, but as said, that problem could very easily be resolved! ;-)

[Spliff]

My explanation above probably was sub-optimal.

Currently, "FROM tree TO content" functions as follows:
From the Help: "Combine Info Items":
"1. Select the Info Items to be combined
2. Copy them to the clipboard (Edit | Copy or Ctrl+C)
3. Navigate to the location for the new combined Info Item
4. Use the Paste Rich Text/Paste Rich Text with titles option to paste the combined Rich Text (available at Edit | Paste Special on the menu)"

In fact:

- I select the items (after having them first put into the right tree order, in order to get the combined text in the order I want it to be then)

- I ^c them (in the tree)

- I go to the target item*

- I trigger "Edit - Paste Special - Paste Rich Text with Titles"**

- UR then creates a new child item beneath the target item; this new item gets as
title, the title of the first one of the items-to-be-combined, and its content gathers the richtexts from the items-to-be-combined, in order, each of them preceded by the respective original item title

- And since that was ^c, not ^x, the original items-to-be-combined stay where they are (see Help text); beyond the Help text, the same procedure also works with ^x, with the original items then, as to be expected, put into UR's bin, so the user can choose among both (In other words: even with ^x instead, the "Paste Rich Text with Titles" is NOT greyed-out but works as expected.)


* = "Target item": As said above, I don't really want that additional item (=child item of the target item) in most cases, but just those gathered titles plus contents being appended to the content of the target...

** = "Paste Rich Text with Titles": As before, the target item has focus, but when not in tree but in content, this "Paste Rich Text with Titles" is greyed-out, albeit all the necessary data is already in the clipboard, and practically all of the necessary processing algorithm is already within the code:

It would just suffice to put the very same data which otherwise (i.e. if the target item's focus was in tree, not in content) UR would then paste into the (unwanted) new item's content, into the current content (which has focus, and at the cursor position, like any other, "regular" ^v would do) - by NOT greying out the command anymore.

Thus, at the end of the day, I just would like the very same code to be applied, just leaving out the intermediate creation of the new child item:

- with that, as currently, if target item's focus is in tree, and

- without that (the command not greyed-out anymore), if target item's focus is in content

And then, most uses of the command, not only mine, would be triggered from target's Content, promised! ;-)


EDIT:

I forgot to mention: The main and general (!) use of that command would not be the consolidation of several items' contents, but just the smooth shifting of title AND content of one item, into the content of another one, i.e. the dissolution of one item (of which the content then hasn't grown into the size or importance mistakenly foreseen at its creation), into another one (which takes it in as just an additional aspect) - and for which the creation of an intermediate item, just to get both title and content of the item into clipboard, and into target's content, instead of just either of them (i.e. ^a, then ^c in content (which leaves the title out), vs. ^c in tree, then Paste special - Paste text in target's content (which leaves out the content)), in every action, is out of the question.

Thus, for smooth editing, the suggested function would make significantly sense.

(And that's why an ideal solution would have been to make an additional command which, from the tree (!), i.e. from the tree entry of the target item, would just append a blankline, title(s) and content(s) from clipboard into the target's content field, without the user having to focus the content field, and then manually navigate to the content's end (^{end}), for then triggering the above-mentioned (but in content not greyed-out anymore) command "Paste Rich Text with Titles" - if this "workflow" could be consolidated in just one, additional command, to be triggered, as said, from the target's tree entry, this would be of real beauty... but then, even the "minimal" solution, sketched above, would be more than welcome indeed.)