Reworking the Bookmarks menu

[scripting]

One of the last things on my list was to revisit how the Bookmarks menu works.

First, I have a lot of items in my Bookmarks menu, going back to June. Most of them are test posts, as I worked on various parts of the software.

I thought that since I was using an outliner that I would take the time to organize my work, which I did at first, but then stopped doing. As a result my menu got very long, and it was hard to find the things I needed. This is counter to my experience with Electric Drummer, where I meticulously organize the menu, because the work I do there is serious. So I wanted to preserve the ability to reorganize the menu and not have it be machine produced from the database. But I also wanted it to be organized by default in case you slag off like I did, it should still be manageable.

Here's a screen shot of what I came up with.

So -- anyway, I've just finished pass one of the feature, I have at least more session to make it work properly. Will update this thread as work progresses.

[scripting]

Following up, the new version of the software is running in WordLand.

Now when you create a new post, it's inserted into the outline using a simple calendar structure, as shown in the screen shot in the previous post.

As before when you edit the post, adding or changing the title, or if there is no title, the beginning of the post, the software automatically finds the corresponding item in the menu and updates it to reflect the new value.

Scott, since you and I are the only testers now, you may want to update your existing menu, as I did. To do so, open the JavaScript console and enter:

reformatBookmarksOutline ()

It should happen virtually instantaneously.

I'm going to work on a new way to backup your bookmarks menu locally. I found it handy to have this, when I needed to prototype this functionality. And it's always good to have a backup.

[scripting]

A bit more about how Bookmarks work.

I think I have finally found the balance between the calendar view in Drummer blogs, a fully editable Bookmarks list like I use in Drummer.

We automatically insert every new post into the Bookmarks menu using a very simple calendar structure. We just group them by months, so any new post would be put into a submenu named October 2024. If the menu gets too long, just create a top level sub named 2024, and move the 12 items for each month under the year.

But you can open the outline for the menu in the editor, and create a top level entry named Product work, or Personal, or the name of a specific project, and move items from the calendar structure under it. I haven't tried it, but I think you could even move copies, and all the attributes will come along.

Also it will be possible to display the info in the outline in an always-visible box, to the left of the editing window, at least that's the plan. And It's why I'm taking out the unfinished file list feature. The Bookmarks has the same data, but it can easily be organized by the user.

This feature is why WordLand is a "pro" product. If you're doing serious writing you should have this feature, it's made a huge difference for me in Drummer.