Re: Managing Ibidem Note-Taking Files

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

----- Original Message -----
From: John Hill <j.hill@ytu.edu.au>

> Now when a note-taking file 
> is generated, it is given an indexed name by NB and saved in a 
> predetermined folder. 

FYI, you can change the default indexed name and location of these 
files.  Well worth doing (especially when you're trying to keep the new 
and the old together).  

> What I am looking for is a quick and easy way 
> of reorganising earlier note-taking files, so as to use the linking 
> feature. Do I have to manually create a new note-taking file (to 
> which NB will will assign an indexed name), and then copy the 
> contents of my older note-taking files into the newly created one (if 
> you know what I mean!!)? 

I'm pretty sure the answer to your question is no, but there are 
caveats.  All this is IIRC (if I recall correctly) since I can't verify 
it at the moment.  

If the "Record Link" field in Ibidem contains a link to an old (i.e., 
NB7 or before) notetaking file, using that link to open the file will 
add the necessary linking info to the file, so that it does the new NB8 
integration stuff.  Make sure that the file isn't already open when you 
click the link, and that you save the changes to the file before 
closing it (even though you may not have edited it, Ibidem has, and 
those edits have to be saved).  This definitely works with NB7 
notefiles - I can't speak for ones from older versions.  There was a 
bug in this feature in the early beta versions, but I'm pretty sure it 
was fixed in the later ones.  

Doing the above requires that the Record Link field for that record 
contains the necessary link.  If there is no link, I expect you'll be 
able to insert one like any other link to an existing file.  

The catch with the Record Link field is that it can hold only one link 
to one file.  So (again IIRC) for any given Ibidem record, only one 
word processing file can be linked so as to make the NB8 integration 
work.  If you have multiple files for one record (one file with notes, 
another with a review you've written, etc.), you can insert any number 
of links into other Ibidem fields.  But I'm pretty sure that only the 
link in the Record Link field will make the integration happen.  

For those who aren't aware, this nifty NB8 integration stuff includes:  

1.  Using Ctrl-Ins in the word processor to automatically insert a 
citation of the linked record (very handy for entering page numbers 
into notes).  

2.  When viewing entries from note files in Orbis, you can use F7 to 
pull up the linked record in Ibidem.  I don't think there is a way to 
automatically insert a citation of the record into the word processor 
from Orbis (very handy if you're using Orbis to hunt down sources for a 
paper, etc.), but this is almost as good.  

I'm sure there are other neat features I'm forgetting, or just haven't 
found yet.  And there is a lot of potential in this record linking for 
even more integrative features in future versions, so there's plenty of 
reasons to start linking your notefiles now.  

Rob Harper