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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 29, 2012 at 10:29 PM

Dr Andus wrote:
>Would you have any specific
>suggestions as to how NC could be used as a companion to Bonsai (or other one-pane
>outliners that can export OPML)? I’m getting a vague idea that NC could be inserted in
>the writing workflow somewhere between Bonsai and Scrivener as an intermediary, to
>organise the outline further and add some more meat onto the skeleton?

I don’t think that NC could add much to the workflow you suggest. Here’s why:

- NC has tags, but so does Bonsai
- NC has columns, but so does Bonsai
- NC has attachments and embedded media files, but so does Scrivener (I think)

In short, Notecase between Bonsai and Scrivener is like a viola in a string quartet. The cello can play its lows and the violin can play its highs, so you don’t really need it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t beautiful music for viola, just that it shines mostly when not placed among other more specialised instruments.

The only thing I can think of that NC could add is the power of clones, i.e. managing content items that are mentioned in more than one places in the outline, so that your notes on these remain consistent. But I believe that this is probably a marginal benefit, which doesn’t in itself warrant the use of a separate tool.

Posted by Dr Andus
Oct 29, 2012 at 11:15 PM

Thanks for the clarification, Alexander. (Although I didn’t get the bit about the violin, I’m rubbish at music ;)

Posted by Marbux
Oct 30, 2012 at 03:24 AM

@ “But is there a way to display some icons in a column to show which outline items have notes? I poked around in the column settings but couldn’t find anything.”

As mentioned, all nodes have notes whether the notes have any content or not. But it would be a trivial script to write that assigns a particular icon to all notes that have no content. Likewise, to set a special color combination for the note title and its background. Here’s the script to set all empty notes to the “help” icon, a question mark. The function portion to process all notes in the current document has been used in many a script. There are only 6 lines of new code here:

function Process_All_Notes(nDocID)
nNoteCount = Nc_Doc_NoteCount(nDocID)
assert(nNoteCount > 0, “ERROR: the target document contains no notes.”)
for i=1,nNoteCount do
—get the note’s ID and decrement count
strNoteID = Nc_Note_ID_GetByIdx(nDocID, i-1)
—inject string from parent script and execute
assert(load(strProcessNote))()
end—for i=1,
end—function

—get current doc ID
nDocID = Nc_Doc_ID_GetCur()

—assign code to string to be be processed by function
strProcessNote = [[nCharCount = Nc_Note_Content_GetSize(nDocID, strNoteID)
if nCharCount == 0 then
Nc_Note_Icon_SetValues(nDocID, strNoteID, 1, “help”)
end—if nCharCount]]

—execute function
Process_All_Notes(nDocID)

Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 7, 2012 at 09:36 PM

Marbux wrote:
>@ “But is there a way to display some icons in a column to show which outline items have
>notes? I poked around in the column settings but couldn’t find anything.”
> >As
>mentioned, all nodes have notes whether the notes have any content or not. But it would
>be a trivial script to write that assigns a particular icon to all notes that have no
>content. Likewise, to set a special color combination for the note title and its
>background. Here’s the script to set all empty notes to the “help” icon, a question
>mark. The function portion to process all notes in the current document has been used
>in many a script. There are only 6 lines of new code here:
> >function
>Process_All_Notes(nDocID)
> nNoteCount = Nc_Doc_NoteCount(nDocID)
>
>assert(nNoteCount > 0, “ERROR: the target document contains no notes.”)
> for
>i=1,nNoteCount do
> —get the note’s ID and decrement count
> strNoteID =
>Nc_Note_ID_GetByIdx(nDocID, i-1)
> —inject string from parent script and
>execute
> assert(load(strProcessNote))()
> end—for i=1,
>end—function
> >—get
>current doc ID
>nDocID = Nc_Doc_ID_GetCur()
> >—assign code to string to be be
>processed by function
>strProcessNote = [[nCharCount =
>Nc_Note_Content_GetSize(nDocID, strNoteID)
>if nCharCount == 0 then
>
> Nc_Note_Icon_SetValues(nDocID, strNoteID, 1, “help”)
>end—if
>nCharCount]]
> >—execute function
>Process_All_Notes(nDocID)
>

Marbux, thank you for that.

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