Thank You For The Collapsible Headings Feature!

General comments and questions. Technical support.
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freecicero
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Thank You For The Collapsible Headings Feature!

Post by freecicero »

Exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!

Minor question (not necessary, but): Would there be a way to specify the level of the collapse, rather than "All"? In other words, for Multi-level headings, would it be possible for the collapse menu to offer Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, options? I presume that in most heading hierarchies the number of levels would be relatively manageable, but being able to view the headings with only a specified level of detail revealed will probably be a question that users will ask.
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admin
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Post by admin »

Here is how to proceed:

1. Right-click the Headings panel of the Control Board.

2. Click the "Show Levels | 1 only" command from the menu if you want to collapse only the level 1 headings.

3. Click the first heading in the Headings panel, then Shift+click the last heading to "select all headings".

3. Click the "Select heading(s) in the document window" Image button at the bottom of the Headings panel.

4. Right-click the selection in the document window, and choose "Headings | Collapse".
freecicero
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Post by freecicero »

Thank you - yes - I see that that method will definitely work.

Perhaps at some future point the enhancement might be considered to add some kind of direct button from the toolbar, or option in the right click menu, that would allow that to be done in a single step from the main document window.

For example in Ecco Pro this function is performed with the following icon and popup selection tool:

Image

It might be useful to add as well that in Ecco Pro the designers made that popup "sticky" in that it does not disappear every time it is clicked - it does not close until the "x" is checked. That way, the document / outline can be immediately viewed at various levels of detail with only a single click on any of the numbers, which immediately selects and displays the varying levels of detail.
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Post by admin »

I am sorry, but you cannot have one-click-away commands for uncommon tasks. An average document has two levels of headings at most. Even if you have more levels, you can easily select individual heading levels in the document window with find/replace. If you need to select a range of levels, you can use the Headings panel of the Control Board. But the Headings panel is not supposed to display, let's say, only level 2 items. The purpose of the Headings panel is to show the document structure. A continuous list of level 2 items from different chapters does not reflect the document structure.
Last edited by admin on Sat Oct 05, 2019 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by admin »

There is one more way to select headings of individual levels in Atlantis. You can use the Styles panel of the Control Board instead. Just click the required "Heading N" style in the Styles panel, then the "Select paragraphs associated with highlighted style" Image button at the bottom of the Styles panel.
freecicero
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Post by freecicero »

Thanks for the hints!
rstroud
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Headings, just an FYI

Post by rstroud »

I am not asking for a change.

I just wanted to comment on this:
An average document has two levels of headings at most.
My current project, a "how to" manual (free) on how to use the Fade In screenwriting software, has six levels. That does not include the many paragraph styles that are strictly text styles (indents, amount of space above, font size). I left these as undefined levels.

Having levels does not mean that each additional level has to be indented more than the one above it. But a technical book of any kind, if done properly, has more than two levels for organizational purposes.
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Post by admin »

Of course, you can have up to 9 levels of headings. But most documents have far less levels.
Robert
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Post by Robert »

The more levels there are, the more they need to be clearly defined for the author’s and the readers’ sake.
Assigning a specific style to each paragraph level makes formatting changes across the whole document a breeze.
Indentation is not the only way to signal a change of level. Any distinctive formatting properties will help author and reader identify a specific level.
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