Create note from highlighted text

Done in newest release (see first post).

Thank you !
Works perfectly well.

Thanks for sharing! This is really useful. Few ideas if you are interested in iterating on it:

  • allow user to change the text that appears with the backlink (i.e. instead of "from" i could choose to say "backlink: ")
  • allow the user to choose whether to default as a note or a todo (i use todo's 99% of the time)
  • allow the user to choose to have the newly created note opened automatically
  • allow the user to define a new title (especially useful when I copy a large amount of text)
  • allow the user to assign a keyboard shortcut to the action

Also, FYI, for me I don't see this when I right click the text, I can only get it to work by clicking the star. (EDIT: I see this same issue in other plugins, so might be my problem :slight_smile: opened this to ask: Right Click on Mac)

3 Likes

All are valid ideas and thanks for taking the time to write them.

Give me some time, i will implement them.

allow the user to define a new title (especially useful when I copy a large amount of text)

How would you like it to be implemented? It can be to pop up input box to ask for new title.

2 Likes

Few ideas for how to implement:

  1. Leave it as is, but if/when you are able to get to "open new note automatically" have the cursor in the title box, then it is fast to leave or edit. The biggest issue with this is that the link to the note would have different text.
  2. Have a popup box, as you said. Ideally, this would be pre-populated with the selected text, so I could quickly hit enter if I am ok with it.
  3. Same as #2, but with a setting that says "choose custom title if text is above words". This would give the user some control. This lets me have the functionality to really quickly create "wiki" style links (where I highlight a word or two, click a keyboard command, and a new entry with that name is created). But it also works in the case when I am actually trying to move part of a long note into a separate note. In that case, I'd almost always want to have a different title.
3 Likes

All of a sudden, Convert Text To New Note doesn't work anymore.
I didn't use it since maybe 2 weeks, today I wanted to split a few notes and nothing happens when I select some text => right-click => Convert Text to notes (same things from the icon).

Looking at the console log, this is what I have : -1610265787472.log (1.2 KB)

Log
index.html:1 Uncaught (in promise) Error: Cannot execute a command without a runtime: selectedText
    at CommandService.<anonymous> (C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\1mpmxbqw6gSvGilmcLUZ6c7NPdS\resources\app.asar\node_modules\@joplin\lib\services\CommandService.js:144)
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\1mpmxbqw6gSvGilmcLUZ6c7NPdS\resources\app.asar\node_modules\@joplin\lib\services\CommandService.js:8
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)
    at __awaiter (C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\1mpmxbqw6gSvGilmcLUZ6c7NPdS\resources\app.asar\node_modules\@joplin\lib\services\CommandService.js:4)
    at CommandService.execute (C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\1mpmxbqw6gSvGilmcLUZ6c7NPdS\resources\app.asar\node_modules\@joplin\lib\services\CommandService.js:136)
    at JoplinCommands.<anonymous> (C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\1mpmxbqw6gSvGilmcLUZ6c7NPdS\resources\app.asar\node_modules\@joplin\lib\services\plugins\api\JoplinCommands.js:56)
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\1mpmxbqw6gSvGilmcLUZ6c7NPdS\resources\app.asar\node_modules\@joplin\lib\services\plugins\api\JoplinCommands.js:8
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)

Any idea what's going on ?
Thanks !

Windows 10 / Joplin 1.6.6 (prod, win32)
Client ID: 817c6c01ce9649c797b83efe3df5f1fe
Sync Version: 2
Profile Version: 34
Keychain Supported: No
Revision: f58b7563e (master)

2 Likes

I see it on my end too.
It happens on Joplin 1.6.6. I'm looking for fix, atm.

1 Like

I think this is the way.

If i understand it correctly, it would work like this:
If text is just one line - (few words), create new note with those words as title.
If text is 2 or more lines, ask for title in popup (pre-populated with first line to be edited or accepted).

Is that the case?

2 Likes

There are few problems with 1.6.6.
So if ,that's possible, downgrade.

Few other features were also affected by 1.6.6 :frowning:

Working in Joplin 1.6.7 which was released a few hours ago. Your backlinks plugin works in this release as well.

2 Likes

New version is out with these features added:

  • allow the user to choose to have the newly created note opened automatically
  • allow the user to define a new title (especially useful when I copy a large amount of text)
  • allow the user to assign a keyboard shortcut to the action

Keyboard setting for creating note is "Ctrl+Alt+N" but it should be possible to change in Keyboard Shortcuts to any combination.

These are still pending:

  • allow user to change the text that appears with the backlink (i.e. instead of "from" i could choose to say "backlink: ")
  • allow the user to choose whether to default as a note or a todo (i use todo's 99% of the time)
2 Likes

Thank you, this is great!

It looks like the trigger for asking for the title is >1 paragraph. This threw me off when I tried on a paragraph with many lines of text. Maybe a future change could trigger it based on having lots of words? Not sure if that's possible.

3 Likes

I'm finding this plugin very useful in conjunction with my daily "todo note" that I work out of as my anchor or reference point for the day. Anytime an item starts getting a little long, this plugin streamlines the process of creating a new note out of that text and creating the backlink. This keeps my daily todo note neat and easy to scan.

Agreed. Anytime you have more than a few words that you are going to convert to a note, you'll likely want to change the note title since most of us don't use sentence-long note titles.

3 Likes

Good points.
I will make it trigger on amount of words in first line (8? 10?).

Technically its not dependent on paragraph but on new line made with Return (or Enter) key.
So if one will write long text without breaking it with Enter its treated as one line,while it looks in editor as having multiple lines.

2 Likes

IMHO, even 8-10 words is too high a threshold. Check the titles of your 10 most recently updated notes - what's the average # of words in note title? I'm guessing it's less than 8. Just ran this test on my notes - avg for 10 most recently updated notes is 4 words (and I counted words like "and", "for", and still only 4 word avg for titles).

Is is possible to create exclusive options in a plugin's settings (meaning user can only specify one option)?
If so, maybe something like:

  • Always ask for title
  • Ask for title if 8 or more words are selected

OR how about this instead, if technically feasible:

  • Ask for title if more than [ ] words are selected
    User supplies # of words to trigger title pop-up. 0 = always ask.
2 Likes

This is good solution. I set default to 5 so if 5 or more words are chosen then popup will ask for title.
(Its still counting words on first line)

Also default type ("note" or "todo") and text before backlink is now possible to choose in options.

Newest version is 1.4.4 (.jpl in OP) and will be soon available in Joplin plugins search

1 Like

Just tried new version. Looks good, but I noticed one issue, when I select text and run plugin, the newly created note duplicates the selected text. So for example, I selected "test converter" in a note, ran plugin and new note body shows:

test converter
test converter

Joplin 1.7.3 (prod, win32)

2 Likes

Yes! Works really well thank you!

FWIW, I am not seeing this behavior.
Joplin 1.7.4 (prod, darwin)

2 Likes

Did you use 0 or so as number of words to trigger popup?

If so the dialog popup asks for a title and adds it to the beginning of new note.
The highlighted text becomes new title (first line in editor) and ,additionally, a new body (everything below).

Yes, 0 words in settings (behavior described below is identical for 0 or 1 word).

Part of the design makes sense to me - user edits title, and this becomes title of new note and the text for the link placed in the referring note. But this edited title also becomes the first line of the note body, followed by the originally selected text - this bolded bit seems undesirable.

For example, I select the words "test converter" in a note, then edit title to "plugin check". Results:
image

If I give a note title, it should be the title of the new note and the text for the link, but why should it also be the first line of the new note's body?

1 Like