Folding Text Request

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levelbest
Posts: 21
Joined: 2018-04-04 06:29:10

Folding Text Request

Post by levelbest »

Greetings everyone. I was an early fan of Nisus, back in the day. I purchased a license for Nisus Writer with my brand new Mac IIsi. For one reason or another, I eventually stopped using Nisus. That has as much to do with my writing priorities as it does in any way against Nisus. Very recently, I returned to the Nisus fold. And I am writing - a lot.

So, please do not take this as any sort of complaint against Nisus, but I would love to see if a folding text feature might be of interest to anyone else - especially to the development team. I feel a little cautious in asking this as some software forums have taught me that people can get quite “flamey” when you go off-script with the design of their favorite app. So really, no offense meant but, here is what I would like to see in Nisus.

I would like to see if there could be a feature in Nisus to fold text (out of the way). Some apps have this feature so I would assume that, should there be any real interest in it, this could be implemented.

Why it could be useful. I just finished working on an extremely complex document . The final draft was about 35 pages. I went through many, many drafts to get there. It was a legal case involving lost records while I was in service, the VA, The Air Force, German records, this group of facts, that group of facts. And finally, to have to construct it in a series of rational arguments, with a TOC, without emotions, to make it clear - and legally valid.

I could not have done it using all the documents and drafts of past cases alone. I have come to rely on TaskPaper. TaskPaper is a todo list for plain text but the way that I use TaskPaper is as a reorganization tool. That is, it can fold text sections out of the way, focus in on sections, and search quite easily. I am not suggesting that Nisus replace Taskpaper. But now that I have been through the wringer compiling this major piece of work, I thought I would at least put the question forward here in the forums, of the thought of having a folding task feature added to Nisus.

Yes, I made good use of the navigation panel and yes, I made good use of styles and the TOC. All of that is still important in keeping me tracking the document.

Where a folding text feature is different from these is where I could expand or collapse sections that I wanted to work on - or not work on right now. It would be a great help in the draft phase of the writing of my document.

Of course, this may be a feature that I will always turn to TaskPaper for regardless. I just wanted to ask this here to see if anyone else things that adding a folding text feature in Nisus might be a good idea?

Thanks
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