paste hierarchical (but not tab-indented) content to get corresponding outline hierarchy in grid

Submitted by jimspoon on 2025/03/27 23:20

Often content I want to paste into a Grid from an outside source already has an outline structure of some kind, but it's not tab-indented.  And so when I paste it into an IQ grid, the hierarchy that was present in the outside source is not replicated as a parents/children outline in the Grid.   The content as pasted as items all at the same level.  So if I want to reproduce the hierarchy in a Grid outline, I have to go through all the items and indent each one to the appropriate level.

Just as example, I used the Copy icon in Copilot to copy a Copilot response to the clipboard, which I discovered is in Markdown format.  If I paste such content in the Doc pane using Right-click > Paste Special > HTML Format, IQ generates HTML headings corresponding to the headings in the Markdown.  So pasting in HTML format in the Doc pane preserves or replicates the original hierarchical structure that was in the Markdown text.  But if I paste the same Markdown content in the Grid, this hierarchy is not preserved:

paste in html format in doc pane vs grid 

Ideally, the structure in the original source of the pasted content would be replicated in the Grid.  Of course, I'm sure that different external sources represent hierarchical content in different ways and it wouldn't be easy for IQ to detect and replicate them.  Just an idea for sometime in the future.

Comments

Lol, I'm guessing you might be close to me in age, Jim, as I've been doing a lot of cramp-related AI research myself only this past week... 😄 I agree it might be useful to have a reliable way to import AI ► grid.

I am an old guy for sure, but I've been prone to cramps since I was young!  Had a weird one the other day - my left hand kept cramping, had a hard time using a fork!  I figure too much caffeine (diet coke) depleted my electrolytes.  I'm hoping that before too long IQ will handle pastes of "hierarchical" Markdown in the Grid just like it handles pastes of Tab-Indented text (haven't done that in a while though).  Seems like it would be a natural extension.

I've always preferred to put my content in the Grid rather than the Doc Pane, because the Grid outliner capabilities make it so much easier to reorder text.

Birds of a feather... I do not use the doc pane feature at all (I figured I might as well save a file to disk and link to it) and use the HTML section of the edit item dialog on fewer than 20 of my thousands of items, could probably do without it entirely for the same reason given above. Nor have I ever used tags. Very humbly, I just require the best outlining experience on Earth, lol.

Amazing how different the IQ use can be ! I'm a big fan of the of the Doc pane (daily notes concept) and would live without tags (tree organisation, grid source and as a grid column)

Paste a HTML/Markdown outline in the grid is on the wish list

Pierre_Admin
IQ Designer

I think the many different ways that IQ can be used are a sign of how great a program it is.  I do use the Doc pane quite a lot, but the Grid is my first preference.  Another reason, besides the split/join/reordering tools of the grid, is that I don't have to look two places (grid / doc pane) to find what I'm looking for.  Having one less pane open is also helpful if you're working on a laptop.  I think another factor is probably that those of us who migrated from Ecco were used to not having a Doc Pane.  Also, of course, if it's content that needs to have fields - it needs to be a grid item.  A lot of text lines don't need to have their own fields, so the Doc Pane is a candidate for that.  And Doc Pane content tends to stay intact, but if you divide up a lot of content into many items and subitems, it's more subject to Error 18, especially when I am at the helm.   😆😆😆

I also have preferred to use fields rather than tags, but am warming up to tags for sure.  Tags have some definite advantages, and the implementation is outstanding.  And, no reason why you can't work with both, depending on the purpose at hand.  Items can be tagged to start with, and then assigned fields later.

I've always preferred to put my content in the Grid rather than the Doc Pane, because the Grid outliner capabilities make it so much easier to reorder text.

Indeed. Did you know that the Doc pane does have limited support for outlining? 

  • Alt + up/down moves paragraphs and bullet points up/down (not recursive nor perfect, but it works)

 

Ah, I didn't realize that Alt + up/down did that in the doc pane. This is very good! Could it be enhanced so that one could do this with blocks of paragraphs and not just individual paragraphs? And being able to move a heading and what's under it with a command would be great. 

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