Star Stuff Writer

TreePad (www.treepad.com) is the most powerful and flexible solution I’ve found for keeping text notes on my computer. (You know, I did say that before.)

In this post, I’m going to explain an idea that just appeared – all sparkley, like Captain Kirk, out of nowhere. It emerged from my efforts to set up projects so that they were quick and easy to use. It took some time and focus to set up initially. But I think it will serve me well over time.

In my last TreePad post, I expressed concern about the length of the article – and I expressed concern about the series of TreePad posts going on indefinitely. It would appear that I’ve decided that four TreePad posts is not yet “indefinitely.”

My Earlier TreePad Hyperlink Use

I’ve used hyperlinks in TreePad in a small way, all along – for years.

More recently, I transitioned into using hyperlinks more extensively. Possibly this was because, more recently, I’ve had a larger number of personal projects – more developmental projects. For this reason, I’ve built more TreePad files, and some of these files have become more complex, and I’ve been spending more hours each day working with these files.

My hyperlink use, up to this point, has been setting up individual links. Any time I found that I often went from one article to another article – repeatedly jumping between the same two articles – I’d set up a “Link To” and a “Return” link. And of course, when I wound up with multiple links in a given article, I’d be looking at how to put them in a compact, logical arrangement.

In my previous TreePad article – TreePad – Hyperlinking and Peculiarities – in the “Power Squared” section of that article – I explain my earlier hyperlink use.

But that section of the article also explains my earliest use of a new idea.

As I write this, I think of that previous article as covering my use of hyperlinks up to and including the point of rotation – that point where the idea sort of takes off.

More Recent TreePad Hyperlink Use

I had already been using a visual array of hyperlinks. What I mean is that the hyperlinks were arranged in columns – or spaced out across a row – or both.

The idea I came up with was creating an array of hyperlinks that could be set up once and then copied to several other articles.

What this meant was that in most of the places this array would be copied to, it would contain a link to the article where it appeared. That’s what I’d never done before. I had never set up a link, in an article, that linked to the article where the link appeared. It didn’t make sense.

But let’s say I have a project that’s big enough – or complex enough – that it has several parts – maybe six parts – maybe twelve parts. One article is the top level of that project. The top level article winds up being the menu to all the sub-articles in the project. That top level article may contain overall project notes – but it is also the project menu.

In this project menu article, I built a list of links to each of the sub-articles.

If the list was fairly short, my project link array might be a simple stacked list of links, aligned on the left margin. Then I highlighted the list – including the blank line above and below the list – copied that to the clipboard – and pasted that list into each of the sub-articles.

In a case where the list was fairly long, I built a straight list, as before. But then, above that list, I created a two column wide TreePad table. The table was overall the width of the page. I then copied the top half of the straight list into the left cell – giving it a blank line (inside the table) above and below, to make it easier to look at. Then I copied the bottom half of the list into the right cell. Then I highlighted the whole table – including the blank line above (and outside) the table – and the blank line below the table – copied it to the clipboard – and I pasted this table into each of the sub-articles.

Whether the copied array is a list or a table, I then copied a string – “(tab)<#:#:#:#:#:#” – maybe I built the string a bit longer – to the clipboard – and then pasted that string to the right of the current article link, in the link array, in each of the sub-articles. If it caused the line to wrap, I’d shorten the flag string, from the right, until the line no longer wrapped. I found that this gave the link array a useful visual clue to which article I was currently in.

At one point, I was working on a project, and as it developed, it acquired several more sub-articles. What my link array (built in the menu article) meant was that it took me a minute – maybe two minutes – to rebuild the linking structure within that project – and I was back in business.

So if a project has lots of parts, the intra-project link array would probably be a table. If the project has fewer parts, the intra-project link array would probably be a simple list.

Now let me take this explanation up one level. In my “Project” TreePad file, I have, let’s say, five projects working. Each project has an article that is the menu for that project. But when I’m working on one project, I often find that I get an idea for another project, and want to flip over there and make a quick note.

Each project menu article has a stacked list of links to all the projects. If I’m working on a project, and I get an idea related to another project, I have only to click back to the menu for the project I’m working on, click on the project I want to make a note for, click down to the sub-article where the note belongs, type the note, and I’m done. I only have to click back to where I was working and continue.

NOTE: A hyperlink to an article uses a “Node ID”. This explains some of how copying a list of links works. It also explains that if I copy a node that has links to it – intending to rename the copy and use it elsewhere – I need to be careful to rename the copy and not the original – or my links will be messed up.

And so …

I have a partner who is in a difficult situation and needs a lot of help from me. That means I need to be able to fit bits of productivity into small bits of time.

These flexible tools – the one I acquired (TreePad), together with those that I devised – will enable me to be productive and still take care of my friend.

Once again, I invite you to e-mail me if I can explain this more clearly – or if, in any other way, I can be helpful.