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Using OmniOutliner |
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Basic Keyboard Navigation - To add a new item to your outline, simply press the Return or Enter key (There's a preference that allows you to change the behavior of the Return key, but by default, it creates a new item). You can navigate around your document with the keyboard by pressing any of the arrow keys. The Up Arrow and Down Arrow will scroll you in the appropriate direction, keeping the edit cursor (if any) in the same column. The Left Arrow and Right Arrow can be used to start editing the currently selected row, scroll through the contents of a column, and move between one column and the next. A quicker way to move through multiple columns is to press the Tab key (Shift-Tab reverses direction). To indent the currently selected item, you can press ⌘[ or ⌘R; ⌘] or ⌘L will outdent the currently selected row. If an item has a status checkbox associated with it, hitting the Space Bar will check or uncheck the box. Of course, if you're currently editing a row, hitting the space bar will insert a space; hit the Escape key to end the current edit, then hit the space bar. If you navigate to a new point in your document and want to resume editing, hit the E key. These are just some of the basic keyboard commands; for a full list, choose Keyboard Commands from the Help menu, or check out the keyboard shortcuts in the reference section. |
| Selecting Rows - You can select an entire row by navigating to that row with the keyboard or mouse, then hitting the Escape key. You can also select an entire row by clicking with the mouse in that row's gutter space. To select several rows at once, simply click the mouse in the gutter space, hold down the mouse button and drag over the rows you wish to select. Release the mouse button once all the rows you're interested in have been selected. |
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Dragging Rows - To drag an item to a new location in your outline, simply click on the item's handle and drag; the row will stay in the original location, but you'll see a transparent proxy of the item following your mouse around the document; you'll also see a black line with a circle on the left end follwing the mouse, as well. The line indicates where in the document the item you're dragging would be inserted if you released the mouse button at this point; the small circle, which moves left and right as the mouse does, indicates what level the item would be dropped at. For example; if you clicked an item and dragged to the right, you could drop the item as a child of the row just above it (exactly as if you'd used the Indent menu option); you could then reverse the process by clicking on the handle again and dragging the item to the left until the small circle is no longer indented. There is one trick, though; if you're dragging an item that's one of several children, you can't just drag the item out to the left to put it on the same level as its parent; the question is, do we detach the child from its peers and place it below them, or do we leave the children above the one you're dragging attached to its old parent and make this one the parent of the children below it? Well, actually, we do neither; to put one of several children on the same level as the parent, you need to drag it down just below the last child, drag to the left, and then drop. This will put the former child on the same level as its old parent; if you want move any of the other children under the item in its new location, you can now drag them to their new locations. |
| Resizing Columns - If you examine the column title bar, you'll also see a thin vertical line dividing one column from the next (i.e. dividing the notes column from the adjacent content column). If you hover the mouse over the divider, you'll see the cursor change to a double-ended arrow; click and drag left or right, and you can resize the column that's to the left of the divider. |
Related Topics | |
Table Of Contents: Getting Started Terminology What Is An Outliner? The Document Window Saving & Printing Your Outlines |