Disappearing paragraphs

[Rob Harper <jharper () students ! wisc ! edu>]

Greetings all,

The following tale of woe is meant both to express my own inner angst 
and to warn others to avoid a similarly distressing fate.  

Today, on two separate occasions, a newly written paragraph literally 
disappeared from my dissertation.  In both cases, I was working on a 
subsequent paragraph when it happened, and in both cases I continued 
working for a while before realizing what had happened (long enough for 
autosave to copy over the version of the file that still had the 
paragraph).  Strangest of all, in one case, the paragraph had been 
replaced by a duplicate of the following paragraph.  I cannot overstate 
how much this phenomenon alarmed me.  Making progress on the 
dissertation is hard enough:  it seemed hideously unfair that my word 
processor was unilaterally reversing what little I'd accomplished 
today.  

Both times this happened, I decided to save a copy of the document, and 
then do a run of undos to try to track down the lost paragraph.  The 
first time, however, I forgot to uncheck the "Switch to Save As 
Version" check box, and lost my undo options.  I couldn't find the 
paragraph in the extended clipboard either, so I had to rewrite it.  
The second time, I remembered to uncheck the check box, and was able to 
backtrack in the original document, find the missing paragraph intact, 
paste it into the "Save As" version, and then replace the old version 
with the new.  But the mystery remained:  why did my paragraphs 
disappear in the first place?  

I think I've figured out the answer (though I welcome alternative 
interpretations).  While inserting citations into the new paragraphs, I 
was periodically switching between my main document and a number of 
note files on sources, using Alt-F10.  But at some point in the 
process, I hit Alt-F11 by mistake, and thereby transposed the new 
paragraph with the previous one.  Realizing my mistake, I hit Ctrl-Z to 
undo the transposition.  Realizing that the transpose command actually 
entails a couple of different commands (namely cut and paste), I hit 
Ctrl-Z a couple of times.  When I saw the new paragraph back where it 
belonged (at the bottom of the text), I proceeded with my work, 
assuming that the preceding paragraph had also returned to its proper 
place.  

Sadly, this was not the case.  It turns out that to fully undo the Alt-
F11 command, one must type Ctrl-Z no fewer than four times.  And, so 
far as I can tell, there is no way to learn this fact without actually 
experimenting with undoing paragraphs.  The first Ctrl-Z deletes the 
[originally] first paragraph.  The second creates a duplicate of the 
remaining (second) paragraph (hence the replicated version I 
mentioned).  The third removes the replicated paragraph, but the 
missing paragraph doesn't return to its place until the fourth Ctrl-Z.  

Of course, this problem would have been avoided if I'd simply double-
checked to make sure the first paragraph was back in place.  But the 
possibility that it hadn't returned didn't even occur to me, and I 
imagine it wouldn't occur to many NB users facing a similar situation.  
And I've grown extremely leery of multiple Ctrl-Zs, especially when it 
involves potentially undoing complex commands (such as the citations 
I'd been inserting when this happened).  Since Ctrl-Z undoes such 
commands in stages, and since many of the component stages are 
invisible in draft or layout view, I didn't want to risk undoing part 
of a citation command (and this isn't even getting into the ways Ctrl-Z 
and Ctrl-Shift-Z especially can mess up a document by putting fragments 
of text or commands in bizarre places - that could be a subject for a 
post even longer than this one).  But the basic problem is that, while 
we know that Ctrl-Z undoes complex commands in stages, I can find no 
way for a user to d
iscern how many stages of a command need to be undone, or what stage 
(and even what command) the undos are working on at the moment.  

And yes, I realize that one can undo a transposition by simply 
repeating the transposition, but I (and I expect others) have trained 
myself over many years to instinctively reach for Ctrl-Z whenever I've 
mistyped a command.  It's as natural as reaching for backspace when 
I've mistyped a letter.  While I feel somewhat silly that I didn't 
simply type another Alt-F11 at the time, I think some part of the blame 
lies with the software, and in particular with an undo command whose 
use is often misleading and confusing.  

So beware all ye writers who dearly love your paragraphs, and take care 
should your fingers type an unwanted F11.  

Be well,

Rob Harper