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Old 07-06-2011, 05:35 PM
schferk schferk is online now
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Join Date: 11-02-2010
Posts: 151
a )

So, I'm trying my best with export, and unfortunately, my memory was bad : Even there, there is NO special character to be inserted between items ; it's just that there you can CHOOSE if there will be a page break of not, so if you know how to change a page break into another special character (I don't know at this time), you could use that as a special character from which to work on.

If you don't check that option, you just get 3 blank lines between the items, but much more important, the indent level is NOT preserved, let alone any semi-automatic formatting for different indent levels, so even the text of your items isn't distinguishable from the items' headers (I've got it all in Arial, but in diffrent point sizes, whereas in the rtf file, it's all the same size.

Let alone the fact that of the two options, "text items to an rtf doc" and "item notes to a rtf doc", it's the FIRST one you must choose, in order to retain the text of your items (the option "including titles" being on in both cases) - that's not easy to grasp (= kind say for "illogical" but perhaps again I didn't understand too well).

In fact, indentations / the different levels MUST be preserved, since without that, your manual work would be gigantic if the exported subtree contains more than just some items.

b )

So now I'm searching for a numbering function that could help with identifying the titles and their indentation level...

c )

A side-step : Are you aware that all these numbering functions in competitors - and hoping UR has such a fonction also -, ain't that good ?

In fact, if you write for "publication", be it in book form or just a lenghty paper, relying on an outliner's capability to fractionize your writing, before a printed output to be read by third parties, you have always that need to reference parts of your work in other parts of your work.

Often you must work on those references, and here UR and some of its contenders excel : Those references are made between the chunks of your electronic work, and you can access them within your electronic work, i.e. when writing.

d )

But then there's the catch : On final count, (most of) those references are meant to work IN PRINT ! "in print" being when published, or just when read on laser print-outs, no matter, but read on paper.

There, all your electronic referering is GONE, and you'll do your "print referencing" manually, or - in fact, that's the only real solution for now - by having encoded, all your electronic work along, special, cryptical reference codes, be it for InDesign, for Quark XPress, for PageMaker, for Framemaker (look into their manuals' appendices, they all have such codes, every program having its own)...

e )

But these special codes will DOUBLE your electronic references in your outliner, you always will have to take care to not forget to put in (= double, here and there) your "publishing reference code" together with your electronic reference.

f )

To my knowledge, there is NOT ONE contender facilitating this need for the printing referencing needs, on top of the working referencing needs, and of course, with the existing electronic systems, you cannot do it since any shuffling around of chunks of your work - the great advantage of outliner systems - will make the electronic references useless for any printing reference needs.

g )

Which is to say that the great step ahead would be a numbering system NOT as an add-on for printing and exporting, just numbering the results of your work, but a "live view" numbering system working from the creation of your first item on, and updating an internal reference table with every shuflling around of items and even paragraphs within those items.

h )

There's no need to say that if you can facilitate just a little bit your reference work by manual coding for InDesign and others, by macros, in fact you need a numbered list, let's say the numbers from 1 to 1,000 or more of them, and every time you do such a manual reference, you'll cross out the next number on your list, on paper, with a pencil, and be careful to put exactly that number as the identifier into your reference code ; scholars being programmers in their spare time even could imagine a script system automatically offering them such numbers upon macro request ; it really goes wild as soon as our scholars are working on different papers at the same time (and even on paper, don't mangle your lists !)... my proposal would be, do one big list for all your work, even if then, rather soon, you'll be into the 5-digit numbers...

i )

UR isn't a bad program ; just look at its locking up the item you're working on, in a network, instead of locking up the whole file, as contenders do.

But there are tasks where UR could, after much programming work, be ways ahead of the competition, AND serve a vast market, the scholarly market being a very big one, and a rather poorly served as well.

j )

So you see, (missing) footnotes ain't the problem ; their encoding for publishing is extremely simple ; even a very basic UR macro would do, make it a field in the options where you enter the code characters before and after, with, in the middle of it, an "x", representing the footnotes' text, and on triggering the "Footnote!" command, make pop up a dialog screen where you just enter that footnote's text, and close by return, so even scholars without macro programming environment can use it smoothly. Footnotes are easy.

Where UR could prove, again, its - many a time proven already - excellence is by a living numbering system - AND it will pay, creating a whole new, big market... and where there are plenty of dollar bills to come in.

P.S.

I didn't get printed my about 20 items yet...
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