*protoTyping

I have a novel drag-and-drop approach to introduce Links into my sidebar. I link to a particular Note by dragging it's alias to the sidebar and I create www links by dragging Notes, where URL exists, into the sidebar.

Here is how I do it...

The sidebar, which I call "A Tinderbox Toolshed", is three or more levels deep, with the third levels and beyond providing html links to Notes or URL's.

It is comprised of various top level Notes and Agents, each of which refers to HTMLExportTemplate=sidebar.html, and looks, in part, like this:

-A Tinderbox Toolshed -- Note

--There's No Place Like Home -- Note

---Home (URL exists and links to home) -- Note

--Recent Notes and Quotes --Agent (#first(All Notes and Quotes, 5)

---a list of aliases collected by the agent, to be exported as links to the collected note.

--Things Still to Do -- Agent(Prototype= *protoIdea&Done=false)

...and so forth with more Notes and Agents containing the Notes and Aliases that are to be the Links in the sidebar.

Next comes the key to it all, the export templates.

The export template must be multilayered if it is to handle a multilayered sidebar. It consists of the main template (trainTemplate.html) and three (!) "nested" templates.

The main template collects the sidebar with the include code:

(Double carets to allow for documentation in the TB document this was written in)

^include(A Tinderbox Toolshed)^

This note uses an HTMLExportTemplate called sidebar.html, which in turn uses a template called sidebarlist.html. This template includes children using a final template called sidebaritem.html. This final template includes conditionals to text whether URL exists or whether to link to a note's permalink.

Remember, I have done this through trial and error and there may be a better way to do this.

In any case, here is what the templates look like without the html brackets:

sidebar.html:

^title^

^text^

^justchildren(sidebarlist.html)^

sidebarlist.html:

^title ^

^text ^

^children(sidebaritem.html)^

sidebaritem.html:

Once the templates are set, Agents can be created which will automatically provide specified links.

Aliases of notes can be dragged to appropriate notes in the sidebar to give a link to the original note's permalink

And Notes with a URL attribute filled in can be placed within the sidebar to afford a link that will open in the same window, or a different one, depending on the string written in the newly created "Target" attribute.

BTW: Have you noticed how a URL dragged from the address line in Safari creates a note with the URL attribute already filled in (unfortunately, viewInBrowser is also checked true).

--- Ryan Holcomb 2005 --

A Shed with a View

Tinderbox Help

Understanding Attributes

ATPM - Deep Tinderbox

Mark Bernstein

GTD on the Web

The David Allen Company

43 Folders

MarkTAW

OfficeZealot GTD

My Toolbox