Re: [Tb] Starting to learn Tinderbox

At 1:43 PM +0100 1/29/06, Thorsten Funke wrote:
>For example prototypes. Do I have to link by hand from the prototype
>to any note that should act like the prototype? Is there no faster way
>to tell a newly generated note that it belongs to a certain prototype?
>For example from within the dialog box that appears when creating the
>note?

In the dialog that appears when creating a note, the third item (just
under "Color") is called "Prototype". That is a pull-down menu which
lists all the notes that are prototypes. If you select your
prototype from that list, when you are done with the dialog, the new
note will belong to that prototype. See
http://www.acrobatfaq.com/tbx/index/dialogs/createno.html

There is another way if you have created many notes already and don't
wish to set them all individually. You can create a "stamp" that
sets the prototype, or use a "Quick Stamp". Select all of the notes
you wish to set. Then go to the "Window" menu and select "Quick
Stamp". In the window that pops up, select "Prototype" from the
list, and enter the exact name of the prototype you wish all of those
notes to have. Be careful with capitalization. When you click
"Apply", all the notes you had selected before you hit "Apply" will
have the prototype applied. See
http://www.acrobatfaq.com/tbx/index/dialogs/quicksta.html for which
dialog window to use.

>For example RSS and Web Sites autofetch.

I'm not up to speed on this yet, I'm afraid. Someone else?

>Links, anyway: I have to press cmd+opt to see the frame around links I
>created in a note. I can then click them. But how do I know there is a
>link in a note in the first place? By pressing cmd-opt just in case?
>Why are the links not highlighted in a different color? In
>preferences-text, you can choose text link color, which I did (blue
>for links, purple for visited, red for active as is the default, which
>I did not change) , but the links remain just black like all the other
>text.

First-off, pressing cmd+opt 'in case' isn't a bad habit to get into--
and as you're working on a document, making links, editing them, I
often find it useful to bring up the frame around the links because
I'll be surprised that a link goes as far as it does, or doesn't
include some word, or that there are actually two links next to each
other (which the color-highlighting doesn't reveal, even on web pages)

Which means that, yes, when the preferences are set properly, what
Tinderbox will do is color the text of all of your links using those
colors. It updates the coloring frequently, like when you open a
note's text.

The setting you mention (Preferences -> Text -> Colored text links)
works for me, so I would double-check that the colors are not only
there, but that the checkbox above them, "Colored text links" is
checked. If that box is off, the colors will not be applied to
links. One other thing to check is that there are *two* preferences
dialogs, and that can be confusing. In the "Edit" menu there are
"Tinderbox Preferences" and "Document Preferences". Both look the
same when you open them, but your document gives authority to the
"Document Preferences" window. Make sure that the checkbox has a
check in both preferences windows. The reason that there are two,
although it is confusing, is that the Tinderbox preferences is for
the defaults... if something isn't set on or off explicitly in the
Document Preferences window, Tinderbox defers to the Tinderbox
preferences window. It's not always clear when it is deferring,
though, so if something is not working try checking it off in the
Document Preferences, closing the window, opening it up, checking it
back on again, closing the window, etc. just to be sure. If that
"Colored text links" box is not checked in either window, that may be
your problem.

>I admit this is very simple stuff - a fact that made me suspicous of
>the software.

It sounds like you *almost* had the answers to these. You were
close! I don't know whether you found these resources as you were
looking, but these are some good resources to know about when you're
just learning Tinderbox:

The "Getting Started" page in the Tinderbox wiki:
http://www.eastgate.com/wiki2/wiki.cgi?GettingStarted
"A Tinderbox Reference File": http://www.acrobatfaq.com/tbx/index.html
The Manual, but online: http://www.acrobatfaq.com/tb_manual/tinderbo.html

--Scott
Received on Sun Jan 29 10:40:22 2006