Manual Menu

More About Items

Overview

Launching

Creating A New List

Creating A New Item

Editing An Item

Cutting, Copying, Pasting...

Deleting Items

Saving & Closing Lists

Opening Lists

This chapter introduces you to the General fields available with each item you create in List Pad.

Overview

In the previous chapter you learned the basics about List Pad lists and items. You learned how to create, save, open and close List Pad lists (documents). And you learned how to create, save, edit, and delete items, as well as how to manipulate items using the menu commands under the Edit menu (cut, copy, paste, etc.). You should now be comfortable with the basics of creating and manipulating items, viewing and selecting them in the List Browser window, and opening the Item Editor window. If not, you should go back and review the previous chapter before continuing with this chapter.

In this chapter you will learn more about the various generic, or General, fields available in each item, what they can be used for, and how to customize them. Specifically you will learn:

Go ahead and create a new list. Once you've done that, create a new item.

All About Four Fields

Right now you should be looking at the Item Editor for the new item you created. Like always you see the row of buttons at the top for saving and navigating items, the two fields labeled Field 1 and Field 2, and then the tabbed view with a check box, three popup menus, and two more text fields labeled Field 3 and Field 4.

The four text fields are all generic text fields which can contain up to 255 characters. Field 1 is the field displayed in the List Browser. Other than that the fields have no special meaning and you can use them to store any value you wish. Field 1 may be the "name" for each item in a to do list, for instance. Or, it may be the name of something to buy, with Field 2 being the name of the company which makes the product. In short, these fields mean whatever you want them to mean.

When you first create a new list is probably when you will want to name these fields. After all, Field X isn't a very descriptive name to remind you of what the field is for. Naming each field is very easy and is done through the File Preferences window.

To name the four generic text fields:

  1. With the List Browser in front, select File Prefs... from the Edit menu.
  2. Select Field Labels from the popup menu at the top of the window which appears.
  3. Type in the field names in the appropriate fields.
  4. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the window to save the name changes, or Cancel to discard the name changes.

The fields should now have the names you gave them in the Item Editor. The changes made in the File Preferences window only apply to the individual list, not to every list created. That way each list can have its own field names, for instance.

All About Three Popup Menus

The three popup menus you see in the General section of the tabbed view are very much like the text fields described above in that they are somewhat generic and can mean whatever you want them to mean in the lists you create. Although they have fixed names (Priority, Label, and Category), you can use them for whatever purpose you like, or ignore them completely.

When you first create a new list, these fields all have but one selection: None. You can customize their selections using the File Preferences window used above.

To set up one of the popup menus:

  1. Open the File Preferences window.
  2. Select the popup menu field you would like to edit (Priority, Label, or Category) from the popup menu at the top of the File Preferences window.
  3. Edit the popup menu selections.
    • To add a new selection to the menu, type the selection in the top edit text field and click Add.
    • To edit a selection, click the selection in the scroll list, type the new selection in the edit text field, and click Edit.
    • To delete a selection, click the selection in the scroll list and then click Delete. Please note that whenever you delete a selection a dialog will appear asking you to select one of the remaining selections as a substitute. List Pad will then modify every item in the list that was set to one of the deleted selections, setting it instead to the new one. You must have at least one selection.
    • To sort the selections, click A->Z or Z->A. You may also drag & drop selections to reorder them in the scroll list.
  4. Click Save Changes.

Like everything else in the File Preferences window, these settings are unique in every list.

That's it! Once you have set up these popup menus they are very useful for categorizing the items in your list. The Priority field is displayed in the List Browser, and your list can be filtered by any one or more of the selections in these popup menus.

You, of course, set the selection for each item by simply "popping up" the menu in the Item Editor and selecting the appropriate category. You can also set these fields via submenus of the same names under the Edit menu.

All About The Mark Field

The Mark check box is, very simply, a field which lets you "check off" certain items. In a to do list this may mean that the item is done. In a shopping list, this may mean that the item has been purchased. Or it may indicate an item which needs to be purchased. You can, after all, automatically create a new list from the marked items in a list. But we will get to that later.

To mark an item do one of the following:

All About Notes

Each item has a scrolling text field which allows you to enter up to 32K (32,000 characters) of styled text. This field can be used to store just about any information relating to the item. The address of a contact, directions to a birthday party, a description of a collectible. Whatever you would like to make note of.

To get to the notes field:

  1. Click the Notes tab in the Item Editor.

Now simply click the field and start typing! You can set the Font, Size, and Style of any selected text in the field using the Font, Size, and Style menus underneath the Edit menu. These menus work the same as they do in every standard Macintosh application.

You're finished! The main point to remember is that these fields exist for flexibility. You may choose to use them, or you may choose to ignore them. Use them as you see fit for each individual list.