I am gradually learning to use Agenda and to see what how I can use it with other planningware. But one thing that seems obvious to me is that sometimes an item that begins as a note in one project can morph into a project of its own. And something that is a project can be, with time, best seen as a note or item in another project.
But it seems that Agenda is quite rigid about this, which defeats the dynamic aspect of the app.
So, may I suggest that a rightclick on a note/project whatever allow it to be transformed to a project/note/whatever. This would be very helpful as our projects evolve.
I hope you will consider this.
PS, of course if this is possible already, I apologize but I have searched under every rubric I can and nada.
I guess you want some sort of merge notes/split notes option. Is that it?
Merge would be straightforward enough, but split could be more complex. Eg. Where do you want to put the splits?
We probably won’t go this way in the short term. My suggestion would be to simply use copy and paste of text to combine things in the way you want. This is much more flexible, allowing parts of notes to be moved or merged. Any merge command would be a bit limited.
Hi Drew
No, not exactly
Presumably around the text ("study french”) is code indicating that what follows is a “project”. Right click on the item and an option is “convert to note.” That would change the surrounding block of code from the “project code” to “note code” with all its attributes of subordination, display etc. I infer that there are these blocks because that must be what is generated when you click to get “new note”. I just propose that you swap the one bloc for another. It’s not “splitting”. It’s just reassigning it, giving it the properties of another object.
Does this make sense? Certainly from the point of view of an project’s evolution and workflow, it makes a lot of sense. “Study French” (the project) could easily become a note for the project “morning study projects.”
Kevin
I can empathize with the original request, because I do have the common experience of a line becomes a paragraph becomes a note becomes a project. I will point out that it’s Agenda’s flexibility that makes that possible. I’m not going to argue against your request - but simply acknolwedge that because Agenda has few strong opinions on workflow, each of us is free to come up with our own.
A project in Agenda is really just a folder for notes. It doesn’t have any text itself. So if you changed a note to a project, I guess it would just make a new project, and put that note in it. You wouldn’t really be that much further along. You could just as easily make a project, and drag the original note into it.
I guess a command like “Make new project containing selected notes” may be useful. Is that basically what you are after?
Hi Drew
Thanks for your patience, since I’m clearly not explaining very well. Yes, of course I can just copy and paste between the old note and the new project. A project is a container for notes, but it also has a title that serves as the organizer for a note. And similarly a note is just a note until it is the title of a project when it does something else. So, I was just thinking that it would be satisfying and psychologically useful to move a phrase or title from one to the other via a right-click or drag-n-drop, because in real life I think that’s how projects actually proceed: what was once a whole project gets subsumed into something else; what was a just a note becomes a whole project unto itself with subsidiary notes. But I don’t see a ton of support, and it seems not obvious to you, so I’ll just cut and paste. But I do think that reflecting how real world projects and ideas inter-relate is a desirable feature.
While I kind of see where you’re coming from, and also don’t disagree that sometimes what starts as a single note grows into a project or what you thought would be an entire project could actually just be wrapped up as a single note, I think it should be relatively rare (especially the latter). The problem with adding features to make this very easy is by providing extra menu items etc is twofold.
First, it causes bloat, extra menu items, extra buttons, larger contextual menu items etc. To prevent feature creep/bloat we have to put some bar up for how often it’s likely to be used to warrant the extra complexity it adds to the app. I don’t think this one makes it in that respect.
Second however, if we were to add such features we (as you already suggest) would make the distinction between projects and notes smaller and less well defined, which would lead to confusion for others, and especially new users, as to what we intend to be a note and what would be better of as a project. In fact, the Talk section of the community has already a number of topics discussing what the best setup would be for when to use categories, when to use projects, and when to use notes. And how much goes into a single note as well. The boundaries are already pretty loose, which is great because of the flexibility Agenda offers to build your own perfect system, but it does pose a bit of learning curve/trial-and-error for new users. We don’t want this to become even less clear by diminishing the boundaries even further. Hope this gives a bit more insights into our thoughts.
I agree that the successful formula of Agenda is it’s flexibility, so preserving it is the road to develop further a successful path for it! And I think each of us can create our version of Agenda based on the professional and/or personal needs.