#21 More Control over Embedding Other Records into a Record

[Danny Weltman]

Right now, if I want to add a Term description or a Work description or whatever into the description of a Term or a Work or whatever, I have two options: place it above or below the main text. If I add multiple things then my options are to place some above and some below, or all above, or all below.

Ideally, I would like to be able to place things in the middle. That is, maybe I'm summarizing a Work which is a chapter from a book, and the chapter contains an argument against position X. So, I go and enter that as a separate Argument under the Position. Right now I think I have three options. I can copy and paste the text from that argument back into the Work description, and then add an internal link to the Argument. But then if I change the Argument it won't be reflected in my Work description. Or, I can embed the Argument, but that has to go at the bottom or the top. If the argument comes halfway through the chapter, I want to embed it halfway through the chapter summary in the Work description. Third, instead of summarizing the Work in the description for the Work, I could do it in a bunch of separate Notes (plus the Argument) and then embed all those in the Work description in the right order, but that seems clunky. I'll end up with lots of Notes.

There are probably lots of ways to solve this but here is one possibility. Add a button (maybe to the Layout Editor, maybe next to the button that opens the Layout Editor, or whatever) which adds a "section break" element. The section break element shows up only when you're in text edit mode and it's just some text or whatever that says [Section Break X] or something. You can type anything you want for X, and in the Layout Editor, you'll see Section Break X (and any other sections breaks) listed. (Since the Section Break is just text, eventually nobody needs the button - they can just type these in manually.) You can move those around in the Layout Editor and wherever you have a section break, that bifurcates the main description. So if I want half the chapter summary, then the embedded Argument, then the rest of the chapter summary, I use one Section Break and put it right next to the Argument in the Layout Editor.

[Stephen Mann]

I agree that being able to embed record A's description text within record B's description text, rather than at the top or bottom, would be useful.

Currently I am solving it this way: write the work record description text until I reach an argument. Create an argument record and fill in the description text. Give the argument a search key. Go back to the work record and write in the description "Argument: see SEARCH_KEY". Then continue writing the work description.

This is not a terrible workaround, but embeddable sections would be cleaner and more efficient when reading.