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Re: Notemap 2.0
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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.
Outliners.com Message ID: 5238
Posted by srdiamond15
2006-02-13 23:50:47
<This accidental deletion problem is caused by the automatic selection (i.e., highlighting) of a whole note under certain circumstances. If one then types a character, the whole note is erased. This is part of the standard windows feature that when you mark (i.e. select) a sentence, word, or whatever, but do not immediately copy or cut it, but instead type something, what was selected is replaced by what you typed. Not what one wants in an outliner, IMO.>
It seems CaseSoft may agree with you. In CaseMap, a product more recently updated, typing without unselecting a cell disappears the selection, not the matter selected. I don’t know if this represents a change from a previous version or whether CaseMap just does this differently from NoteMap.
But I’m not sure I like the CaseMap way better. The advantage is it makes the typical mistake less costly. (You don’t lose anything if you had _intended to delete the selected material. You just end up having to delete everything to the left of what you typed.) But the disadvantage is if, like me, other users usually _want_ to delete what they had selected when they select all before typing, one usually expends an extra keystroke hitting delete, isn’t of just letting the typing do the deleting, as in NoteMap.
Of course the danger of accidental loss of data is entitled to greater weight—but only if there is a real risk of loss. Would you not notice that two heading had been inadvertently combined. Maybe not; your pace of work might be greater than mine. For me, the liberal availability of undo obviates any risk.