Shortcuts for Insert actions

[StephenUK]

I love UR, BUT I continue to be driven mad by the difficulty of inserting a sibling (or child) using the keyboard.

It seems, for a sibling, I must use:

Shift + Alt + Insert
Then T
Then down arrow
Then enter

That is six keys, whereas InfoSelect does it with one key.

OK, I can use the tear off bar to get icons, but I prefer not to use the mouse more than I have to.

I have tried using Tools / Customize / Keyboard / Tree to assign some of this routine to a function key, but I can't get that to work. (Am I doing something wrong there?)

Does anyone know a way to insert siblings and children (particularly text notes and directories in my case) using single keystrokes? It would improve my productivity enormously!

[quant]

I think this is the price we pay for the fact that UR is so customizable. The fact that templates are fully customizable probably makes things more complicated, because that option in customizing keyboard shortcuts would need to read the template directory, etc .... so that would mean we could assign shortcuts for items as opposed to assigning shortcuts to hardcoded menus/options. Doable, but much more work I suppose.

Probably using toolbar icons with combination of default child template is the best you can do at the moment, if you don't want to use some macro software.

[StephenUK]

Quant, thanks. Perhaps macro software is the way.

It does, however, seem to me that the program is flawed in this respect and that a solution should be found.

It might not be so difficult to map function keys to individual commands. (But perhaps that is just a macro in disguise...)

[quant]

Originally posted by StephenUK
It does, however, seem to me that the program is flawed in this respect and that a solution should be found.

I agree, seems very reasonable request. Maybe it could be added as two lines (insert as child/sibling) in the new "Shortcuts" section for item's attributes present in the template directory.

[kinook]

insert sibling -> Shift+Enter
insert child -> Insert

[quant]

Originally posted by kinook
insert sibling -> Shift+Enter
insert child -> Insert

yes, but the created item is always given by default child template. We are speaking about creating child/sibling of a given type

[kinook]

The Alt+Insert (child) or Shift+Alt+Insert (sibling), <letter> method is only one extra keystroke combination if you name the templates so each has a different first letter/number.

[J-Mac]

Originally posted by kinook
The Alt+Insert (child) or Shift+Alt+Insert (sibling), <letter> method is only one extra keystroke combination if you name the templates so each has a different first letter/number.

Not true on my installation. Alt+Ins and then if I use T it first tries to give me a Task, when what I want is Text. Both start with "T", and both have the "T" underlined, meaning that the Alt shortcut for the two are identical.

How do I get around this?

Thanks!

Jim

[ashwken]

Jim,

Type the "T" again and the selection will move to the next match in the list, continue typing the "T" and it will cycle thru all choices that begin with "T" until you make a selection.

[J-Mac]

Originally posted by ashwken
Jim,

Type the "T" again and the selection will move to the next match in the list, continue typing the "T" and it will cycle thru all choices that begin with "T" until you make a selection.

Yes. Thank you.

My point was partly that kinook had posted that the shortcut method he mentioned "...is only one extra keystroke combination if you name the templates so each has a different first letter/number."

I could see that the stock templates were not all different first letters, although now I do see that he appears to be referring to naming templates -- so he must be speaking of custom templates. (Haven't discovered those yet! Not yet quite a full day using UR - lots to absorb at first)

Thanks again.

Jim

[ashwken]

Jim,

Welcome aboard!

Feel free to post, I suspect there might be a good number of new users.

[StephenUK]

My view is that a maximum of two key presses should be sufficient to insert any child or sibling element. I don't think that is the case. Nor do I think it should be necessary to define templates to achieve this, which is far too complicated and makes simple tasks only simple for power users.

However, I am now happily using EZ Macros which does all this for me, so the issue of toolbar degradation and keyboard presses has now disappeared for me.

What worries me is that if Kinook treats everyone as a power user then it will not build up a sufficient user base to remain viable over the long term. Most users are busy people and don't have time to master those things that are not immediately intuitive.

[J-Mac]

Stephen,

I agree. As a matter of fact I was hoping that I could create a singular custom shortcut for creating a note - freestyle - whenever and wherever I want. (Like I can use Win+S to clip content with OneNote 2007). But it is apparent that is pretty much out of the question. (Though Autohotkey might help do something close).

I'll have to take a look at EZ Macros, but first I need to get up to speed on the basics themselves!

Jim

[kinook]

Originally posted by J-Mac
Not true on my installation. Alt+Ins and then if I use T it first tries to give me a Task, when what I want is Text. Both start with "T", and both have the "T" underlined, meaning that the Alt shortcut for the two are identical.

How do I get around this?

Expand My Data -> Templates and rename the Text (or Task) template to, for instance, zText, Note, Rich Text, My Text, etc., or rename all the templates to start with a number, etc.