Locked tabs

[bkonia]

For locked tabs, I would like two sub-options:

1. Invert the normal Ctrl-Click behavior, so a regular click would open the web page in a new tab and a Ctrl-click would open in the locked tab.

2. Make it so that clicking on another Info Item opens that item in a new tab

These options could be added to the Trees (more) panel in the Hoisting / Favorites / Title locking section.

Alternatively, these could be added as options in the tab's context menu so that they could be applied to any tab, regardless of whether or not the title is locked. Ideally, you would set the default behavior for locked tabs in the settings, but still have the option to override for individual tabs.

[Nobodo]

Originally Posted by bkonia

2. Make it so that clicking on another Info Item opens that item in a new tab

Big +1 for that.

When I lock a tab, I would also like it to lock the displayed info item so it cannot change to another info item.
To me it is very confusing to have several locked tabs open and then find that a couple of hours ago I accidentally opened a different item into one of those locked tabs. I honestly can't understand why it would ever be desirable to have a different info item opened into a locked tab; isn't that just plain confusing?

Thanks,
Mark.

[kinook]

By design, only the tab's title is locked when Tab | Lock Title is performed. You can still navigate elsewhere and return to the locked item via Tab | Go to Locked Item.

I personally think it would be confusing to prevent selecting another item (or open a new tab anytime another item was selected) in a locked tab, but we will also consider adding an option for that.

[Nobodo]

Great, thanks. Yeah, I use 'go to locked item' all the time, but it is always when I forget to open a new tab first when selecting a different item in the data explorer.

Mark.

[$bill]

Originally Posted by Nobodo

I honestly can't understand why it would ever be desirable to have a different info item opened into a locked tab

I use hoisted folders or saved searches in a locked tab. I use the Child Items pane to sort them, and may then select one to see the item's details. So uisng the GTD database sample, I would have hoisted locked tabs for Active GTD, Projects, Reference, etc. The locked titles tell me what 'view' of the database is in this tab.

[Nobodo]

Originally Posted by $bill

I use hoisted folders or saved searches in a locked tab. I use the Child Items pane to sort them, and may then select one to see the item's details. So uisng the GTD database sample, I would have hoisted locked tabs for Active GTD, Projects, Reference, etc. The locked titles tell me what 'view' of the database is in this tab.

So basically you use locked tabs as a workaround to UR only allowing one tree in a database. The locked tabs provide a virtual tree from a portion of the larger tree, and as long as you don't 'unhoist' then the locked tab title makes sense.

That is absolutely wonderful! Thank you so much for posting that idea! With one simple posting you have just eliminated two of my 3 biggest gripes about UR.

1. There can be one and only one tree in a database.
2. It is possible to lock the title of a note, but not the note itself.
3. There are no options to export a database into anything that is professional enough looking to actually present to anybody.

For item #1 I have been using TreeDbNotes, since it allows any number of trees in a database. Now you have shown me a way to create a virtual tree in UR that takes a bit to set up, but is almost as good as a separate tree. Yay!

Item #2 -- since there was only one tree, I had been using the locking of a note title as a way to keep notes open from various areas of the database (things I'm working on at the time). It was always extremely frustrating to me to have the body of a locked note change when I poked around in the database! Now with the hoist-and-lock, I no longer see a need at all to lock a single note. Lock a branch of the tree instead, genious!

Item #3 -- ok, for now I'll have to contunue using TreeDbNotes for this one. Hopefully soon some professional looking export options will be available for UR.

---

Thank you so much $bill! Before now hoisting had been just a way for me to avoid the clutter of seeing the entire tree at once; I had never thought of combining hoisting with locking a tab. Amazing the things that can be learned by hanging around the forum; you have just increased my productivity in UR tremendously!

Mark.

[Nobodo]

You can take away my vote for an option to lock the item along with the tab. $bill just gave me a totally new use for a locked tab; a new view into the tree itself instead of simply a single note within the tree. I doubt I'll ever use a locked tab for trying to lock a single note again.

Ok, now looking in the 'tree (more)' options I see "Hoist tree when locking tab title or going to a locked item". I now see the use in that; never did before.

Thanks,
Mark.

[kinook]

See Tools | Options | Trees (More) | Hoist tree when locking tab title or going to a locked item.
http://www.kinook.com/UltraRecall/Ma...viordialog.htm

[Nobodo]

Originally Posted by kinook

See Tools | Options | Trees (More) | Hoist tree when locking tab title or going to a locked item.
http://www.kinook.com/UltraRecall/Ma...viordialog.htm

Yeah, I had passed over that option a hundred times before not understanding how it could be useful. The explanation that $bill gave made me realize that you can have different portions of the tree visible in different tabs, which essentially gives you different trees in different tabs. Prior to that I just thought that when you hoisted, the same hoist was there for all tabs, so I never really bothered with it because I didn't see the purpose. I thought there was only one view of the tree no matter what you did with the tabs, so never really used hoisting much and never really used multiple tabs much because they all tied to the same tree so I didn't see much purpose.

The simple explanation of how hoisting and locked tabs were used together made it click in my head. I had read the help page for the Tree (More) Options many times, and that never made it click. Wow, this is such a useful thing it should be in a video on the main description page for UR.

Thanks,
Mark.

[Nobodo]

It would be great if things like the 'hoist-and-lock' were more 'in your face' for new users of UR, so as soon as they started using the product they immediately saw great features like that.

I think there are a lot of users of UR that are very entrenched in how outliners work, so to them things like hoisting and locking might immediately make sense. Then there are probably plenty of users like me who really don't have a lot of outliner experience and are now using them to get their lives better organized. Up until yesterday, to me a tab in UR was a view of a single note. Then came a simple explanation of use and suddenly a tab was not a view of a single note, but instead a specialized view into the tree.

It makes me wonder how many other revelations there are waiting to be seen that will again be huge productivity boosts. I've gone through the help file many times, so know its contents pretty well. The help file gives basic purpose for each individual item in the app (clicking x will do y), but doesn't really explain how or why. Now I need to scour this forum and any referenced videos, etc. to see what else is lying just under the surface.

Thanks for a great product, now on with the quest to find out how to really use it to its potential,
Mark.

[tfjern]

Kinook, aren't you getting tired of hearing UR users -- especially new ones -- saying things such as, "Wow, UR has so many useful but virtually hidden features!" Or, "Gee, I tried to read UR's apparently programmer-centered 'help' file to find the answer to my question, but got lost in all those tedious hyperlinks." Or, "Gosh, it would be nice if there were more user-friendly videos detailing in understandable, step-by-step English all of UR's neat features (if you want to do X, first click on Y, then click on Z, and viola!)...," etc.

UR needs 1) a helpful help file, 2) non-flashy, non-Google-type videos (e.g., Google's absurd and totally useless "Buzz" videos), 3) a global, multi-database search function. Is this too much to ask?

[wordmuse]

Originally Posted by tfjern

UR needs 1) a helpful help file, 2) non-flashy, non-Google-type videos (e.g., Google's absurd and totally useless "Buzz" videos), 3) a global, multi-database search function. Is this too much to ask?

I agree on on 3 of these, though in fairness to Kinook, #1 and #3 are already in the roadmap. http://kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=3204

Were it up to me - it so rarely is - the multibase search would be significantly higher on the list. But it is there.

- Bal