I appreciate the shift-click will toggle the Hit state but ... I just managed to over-write a careful selection of articles by accidentally holding the shift key on one (final) reference. This action was not undoable. Ugh!
I'll look into other methods to "flag" articles of interest. Hints would be appreciated. In the meantime, if a way is found to allow UNDO on shift-click, please implement this.
Undo on shift click toggle hit states
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
I didn't know about the shift-click "feature". What exactly does it? when I shift-click on an item in the library nothing happens.
could you use labels or keywords for highlighting papers of interest for a certain topic?
could you use labels or keywords for highlighting papers of interest for a certain topic?
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
We have always discouraged making references Hits (marking them) as a way of assembling a set for further processing. Hits are evanescent and can be removed or replaced by many common operations (doing a search, doing a Find, scanning a document, etc.), which are not undoable. They also are not preserved between launches and are not synced. What you want to use is a static group.
You can create a static group in a number of ways, the easiest being to drop a reference onto the groups pane (anywhere but on an existing static group, of course). Then add additional references by drag and drop or a right-click -> Add To Group. Once the group has outlived its purpose, select it and press Delete.
There is an even better way to quickly add references to a group that is as frictionless as ticking a checkbox:
1. The groups pane has a cloverleaf icon in the header, abutting the right edge. That's a column.
2. With a static group, if you click in that column you'll open a field in which you can enter a number from 1-9.
3. Add references to that group simply by pressing Command-# (e.g., if you entered 1 next to that group, Command-1). It's smart enough to know it should not add the same reference twice.
This feature was added explicitly to address your task: quickly and safely collect references of interest.
Jon
Sonny Software
You can create a static group in a number of ways, the easiest being to drop a reference onto the groups pane (anywhere but on an existing static group, of course). Then add additional references by drag and drop or a right-click -> Add To Group. Once the group has outlived its purpose, select it and press Delete.
There is an even better way to quickly add references to a group that is as frictionless as ticking a checkbox:
1. The groups pane has a cloverleaf icon in the header, abutting the right edge. That's a column.
2. With a static group, if you click in that column you'll open a field in which you can enter a number from 1-9.
3. Add references to that group simply by pressing Command-# (e.g., if you entered 1 next to that group, Command-1). It's smart enough to know it should not add the same reference twice.
This feature was added explicitly to address your task: quickly and safely collect references of interest.
Jon
Sonny Software
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
If you shift-click on a reference's unticked checkbox, it and all of the reference that are showing will be made marked as hits. Conversely, if you shift-click on a reference whose checkbox is ticked, it and all of the reference that are showing will be removed from the hits list.
Jon
Sonny Software
Jon
Sonny Software
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
Dear Jon
This is fantastic... I didn't know that - very useful...
This is fantastic... I didn't know that - very useful...
There is an even better way to quickly add references to a group that is as frictionless as ticking a checkbox:
1. The groups pane has a cloverleaf icon in the header, abutting the right edge. That's a column.
2. With a static group, if you click in that column you'll open a field in which you can enter a number from 1-9.
3. Add references to that group simply by pressing Command-# (e.g., if you entered 1 next to that group, Command-1). It's smart enough to know it shouldn't not add the same reference twice.
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
> There is an even better way to quickly add references to a group that is as frictionless as ticking a checkbox:
Quite nice! Suppose that you want to have one consistent method to gather a subset of references quickly, with the plan to process the subset out to other locations at a later date. An effective general approach is then as follows:
* create a static group called "->process"
* move through the All list of references (or wherever else that you want to hunt for specific references to process)
* when you find a reference that you want to process, give the command-1 keystroke to add it to the ->process static group
Further details on page 111 of the User Guide.
Thanks for the great insight.
Quite nice! Suppose that you want to have one consistent method to gather a subset of references quickly, with the plan to process the subset out to other locations at a later date. An effective general approach is then as follows:
* create a static group called "->process"
* move through the All list of references (or wherever else that you want to hunt for specific references to process)
* when you find a reference that you want to process, give the command-1 keystroke to add it to the ->process static group
Further details on page 111 of the User Guide.
Thanks for the great insight.
--
JJW
JJW
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
Thank you for the great idea to use a "process" static group. May I ask how you move the items afterwards to the "final" group? If you drag and drop them from the "process" group to another group, they will remain in both groups—am I wrong?
Re: Undo on shift click toggle hit states
> May I ask how you move the items afterwards to the "final" group? If you drag and drop them from the "process" group to another group, they will remain in both groups—am I wrong?
My proposal is made simply to avoid the issues that I had in using the Hits list to capture references quickly. Accidentally hitting the shift key or accidentally checking/unchecking a reference while doing the capture step was fraught with errors. With the revised approach, I can generally avoid both cases where mistakes can happen.
In the spirt that quick capture and post-processing are two distinct steps, and that the first step must be immediate without overhead, I handle any extra administrative overhead on the post-processing step as it arises. For example, in one use case, I simply wanted to collect a set of references to send to a colleague as a markdown list. After the collection, I exported the ->process group as a markdown file, and then I removed the references from the ->process group. Certainly, when I would want to move the captured references to a different static group as a more "permanent" assignment, I would have to a) move the set into the new group and b) remove the set from the ->process group. I consider the ease in being able to type command-1 to get the references in place more than paying back on the extra step to move+remove. IOW, I prefer quick keystrokes to drag+drop to do the collection step, and I don't mind afterward to have to use the mouse (in my case, trackball).
Finally, after a drag+drop operation to move to the desired "permanent" group, one needs only to select all references and use the context menu "Remove from Group". The option is also open to me to create an AppleScript that would clean up (remove) references in the ->process static group. The script would activate using a button on my Keyboard Maestro panel for Bookends.
Hope this helps explain my approach.
My proposal is made simply to avoid the issues that I had in using the Hits list to capture references quickly. Accidentally hitting the shift key or accidentally checking/unchecking a reference while doing the capture step was fraught with errors. With the revised approach, I can generally avoid both cases where mistakes can happen.
In the spirt that quick capture and post-processing are two distinct steps, and that the first step must be immediate without overhead, I handle any extra administrative overhead on the post-processing step as it arises. For example, in one use case, I simply wanted to collect a set of references to send to a colleague as a markdown list. After the collection, I exported the ->process group as a markdown file, and then I removed the references from the ->process group. Certainly, when I would want to move the captured references to a different static group as a more "permanent" assignment, I would have to a) move the set into the new group and b) remove the set from the ->process group. I consider the ease in being able to type command-1 to get the references in place more than paying back on the extra step to move+remove. IOW, I prefer quick keystrokes to drag+drop to do the collection step, and I don't mind afterward to have to use the mouse (in my case, trackball).
Finally, after a drag+drop operation to move to the desired "permanent" group, one needs only to select all references and use the context menu "Remove from Group". The option is also open to me to create an AppleScript that would clean up (remove) references in the ->process static group. The script would activate using a button on my Keyboard Maestro panel for Bookends.
Hope this helps explain my approach.
--
JJW
JJW