Re: Disappearing paragraphs

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

A correction to my earlier post (and an additional caution):  

If you accidentally hit Alt-F11, simply repeating Alt-F11 will usually 
not restore your paragraphs to their proper order.  Instead, it will 
simply switch your paragraph with the next one up, and so on, getting 
you further away from your desire.  

So, in case of an errant Alt-F11, it looks like the best way to get 
back where you came from is simply to click Ctrl-Z four times (I'm 
hearing echoes of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North).  

Be well, 

Rob

----- Original Message -----
From: Rob Harper <jharper@students.wisc.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2006 0:14 am
Subject: Disappearing paragraphs
To: Multiple recipients of list NOTABENE <notabene@piper.hamline.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
> 
> 
>