Split window/panes?
Anna Sheridan
revise. I don't revise by editing the existing draft, I write again
from scratch (with ocassional copy/paste). But I need to keep my draft
somewhere in sight, printed copy can do, but it would be nice if I
could have a split window - good copy in one pane, draft in the
other.
On my PC I simply open two occurences of NoteCase side by side, but on
my netbook this leaves very little space for editing. I could of
course save the draft to .txt and open in any text editor, but it
would be handy to have it all in one file. Any thoughts?
cheers
anna
Miro
unfortunately, GTK does not really support MDI (multiple document
interface), so this is not a trivial thing to implement.
Did you try putting two instances of Notecase Pro one below the
other ? If you also set the layout to vertical, you might get enough
screen space
even on the small screens (this needs testing though, just an idea).
I'll think some more on this, but I'm not sure if I can produce
anything fast.
Regards,
Miro
Miro
1. save the existing file as "my_novel_draft_1.ncd"
2. then copy the same file as "my_novel_draft_2.ncd" and start editing
it directly.
Perhaps this might help too.
Regards,
Miro
On Dec 21, 3:08 am, Anna Sheridan <aur.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
marbux
One thing that might help is to get rid of the tree view column. That
would allow the two instances of the program to assign more screen
space to their two note panes.
The Change View Mode action on the View Menu (Ctrl+T default shortcut)
will toggle through three view modes, the default view of both the
Tree and Note columns, note pane only, and tree pane only.
With Change View Mode and using the shortcut, it's very fast to switch
between the three views, so if you need to switch between nodes being
viewed, it's fairly quick and only a single shortcut to remember.
You'd probably also want to make sure that Restore Last Position/Size
is checked on the Start-up page of Configure NoteCase Pro so you can
shut down the app and have it restored to the same position/size upon
relaunch. But caveat, I have not tested what happens with the second
instance's size and position.
For Miro, there's a use case here for another setting. I.e., upon
launch of a second instance, split the monitor's display between the
two instances, resizing and repositioning the instances' windows as
necessary. Might make that the shipping default; it's not much work
for the user to maximize one of the instances.
I'll hazard a guess that the most common reason for launching a
second instance is to compare drafts.
Best regards,
Paul
--
Universal Interoperability Council
<http:www.universal-interop-council.org>
Miro
> launch of a second instance, split the monitor's display between the
> two instances, resizing and repositioning the instances' windows as
> necessary. Might make that the shipping default; it's not much work
> for the user to maximize one of the instances.
Unfortunately, this is not so easy to do in a cross-platform manner :(
Will investigate though.
Regards,
Miro
Anna Sheridan
> would allow the two instances of the program to assign more screen
> space to their two note panes.
>
> The Change View Mode action on the View Menu (Ctrl+T default shortcut)
> will toggle through three view modes, the default view of both the
> Tree and Note columns, note pane only, and tree pane only.
Yes, I do that - even have a pretty button on my toolbar for that :-)
> You'd probably also want to make sure that Restore Last Position/Size
> is checked on the Start-up page of Configure NoteCase Pro so you can
> shut down the app and have it restored to the same position/size upon
> relaunch. But caveat, I have not tested what happens with the second
> instance's size and position.
Based on the behaviour of other software I run with multiple
instances, I'd say it will save the setting of the last one closed. I
run ubuntu on my netbook, maybe there is an equivalent to 'tile all
windows' command - if there is that's good news :-)
>
> I'll hazard a guess that the most common reason for launching a
> second instance is to compare drafts.
Yes that would be my guess too. Editing directly into the draft
doesn't always work, I often need to shift chunks of text around, do
big cuts, etc.
I understand what Miro says about this not being an easy task - I
haven't seen many text editors to support that - I think Kate does,
and I think I've experimented with another editor, but it was aimed at
programmers and otherwise limited. Not even programs for writers can
do this elegantly AND work on all platforms.
Another option I can think of - a real twister - would be to open two
instances from two different locations (having NoteCase installed
twice - so each has its own setup file and remembers files loaded and
their positions. I am not sure how to try this on Ubuntu thought).
Hmmm...
cheers
anna
marbux
> Another option I can think of - a real twister - would be to open two
> instances from two different locations (having NoteCase installed
> twice - so each has its own setup file and remembers files loaded and
> their positions. I am not sure how to try this on Ubuntu thought).
> Hmmm...
Haven't investigated this, but you might check screen-splitting
options for running the second instance of NC Pro on a virtual
machine, on the same hardware as the first instance. I do that using
Virtual Box (Ubuntu on bare metal; Xubuntu on the VM), but I think
Virtual Box requires switching back and forth between the host and
virtual machine rather than splitting the screen. I don't recall
seeing any Virtual Box option to split the screen between the VM and
the host system. Perhaps some other VM?
Miro
> instances from two different locations (having NoteCase installed
> twice - so each has its own setup file and remembers files loaded and
> their positions. I am not sure how to try this on Ubuntu thought).
> Hmmm...
This would be possible if you start one instance of Notecase as a
normal user.
Then you open terminal window and start the second instance as a
superuser (root) with: "sudo notecase".
The first instance will use your user settings, the other one will use
"root" settings for Notecase.
I haven't tried this, but it might work.
Regards,
Miro