I found another user having the same problem: when you create a stack it sometimes changes the order of the notes. Then I saw the solution from Amber that you need to select the notes in the order you want them.
That works if you’re lassoing the notes from top to bottom or vice versa. However, if you Cmd-Click notes one at a time in the order you want them to Stack, it doesn’t maintain the order clicked.
This may be a bug.
However, rather than using Stacks (which get me by) what’s really needed (and I’ve seen several requests for this so I’m not alone) is the ability to format a list that renumbers automatically when you add/delete items.
Thanks!
p.s. the list function drives me to other software but I keep coming back to Scapple because I like it so much. Then I go nuts trying to use Stacks as a workaround to the missing lists. Would love this feature for the future!
The way this is documented, in §4.5.1, Creating a Stack, is like so:
Select the notes you wish to arrange into a stack. The first note you select
will not move, and subsequent notes will be placed under the first note in
order of distance from the first selected note.
So it shouldn’t matter much which method of selection you use, the only important one is which you choose first. For the most part the items will be gathered as they are listed visually, but I suppose in some weird cases it might feel random, like if stuff is scattered around chaotically in a cloud around the point you want to gather them under.
Shouldn’t take but a quick nudge here or there to influence the order, or if you find it easier, use the instructions found in §4.5.6 to re-order the stack more easily after it is created.
Honestly I find that a lot easier than messing with text lists, and particularly rich text lists, which in the Mac text engine, are rather poorly designed and buggy.
At least in windows manual also mentions when select multiple items to stack, after the first the order is chosen on the proximity of the other notes to the first NOT the order you choose them in.
For me, the proximity doesn’t matter. If I distribute the notes so they’re equidistant, I still have the same problem. I think it’s an intermittent bug… but let me know if I’m doing something noticeably wrong.
Make them all the same width, pull them out of stack, but distribute vertically so you know they’re equidistant and proximity from note one isn’t the issue.
Stack them and the order remains.
Undo, so you’re back to an equidistant set of ordered notes.
Shorten notes five and eight.
Stack them and the order changes.
Undo.
Make them all the same width again.
Stack them and the order remains.
I can replicate it fairly consistently, but not always. My workaround of making the notes all the same width doesn’t always work, and not making them all the same width doesn’t always fail. Either way, it’s very buggy for me.
You’ll also notice in the video (see last frame) that I get these strange lines across the cork board. And sometimes parts of notes disappear. Pause the video and scroll to frame 01:11 and you’ll see a white block across my note. That happens a lot. But it goes away when you click elsewhere.
Absolutely love Scapple - I use it to plan out entire novels from start to finish before transitioning to Scrivener - I don’t want to switch to anything else. But I would love to be able to make stacked chapter lists more easily without hitting these bugs.
The problem with not having the ability to make lists that auto-renumber is when I move chapters around during planning or add some in, I have to renumber them manually. But that’s not the end of the world, I get by.
Thanks for the video, that helps me better see what is going on. I will try and create a reproduction case for the developer and see if there is an edge case going on that we can improve.
What I suspect is happening though is that “distance from the primary” isn’t as simple as you’d think, and that if you change the width of a note that might change its sense of distance, in that “one” right below something that stretches 6cm away to the right appears closer, because it’s only 4.3cm away.
I.e. we’re having to look in a radial fashion with the equation, which might sometimes make weird linear “human thinks it looks in order” cases, actually not be in machine order.
We’ll see though.
And like I say, sometimes a little nudge just to get things in the right shape can help. If you push “one” and everything below it way down below the hypothetical wide 6cm note so that it’s now 7cm away, then you’re back to things working the way you would expect.
Thanks Amber, I’m getting by with shortcut keys that align left, make same width, distribute horizontally, then stack. Actually, I think I need to write an automate to do all of those at once.
But I have had it happen once or twice where it still reordered a stack that had been through the above process. That’s hard to replicate though, it’s pretty rare. If I can replicate it, I’ll do another video.
Yeah I played with it a bit, and I’m almost 100% my previous hunch is correct. The math is essentially drawing a line in the same way it would draw a visible connection line between the first note you select, and all subsequent notes. The length of those lines is measured, and that determines the sort order. A really wide note that is right above a really short note technically has a longer line, because there is a wider angle involved.
It’s precisely the kind of thing software can only do so much to help us with, in short. Since we have to account for notes coming from all directions, this is the best method to use with the lowest overall error rate.
So when it happens, just select “five.” and then shift-click on the long note above it, and hit ⌘' to sort them in the right order. I would find that easier than messing with widths and such myself, since I probably had them that wide for a reason, and would then have to go back and pull wide notes back out again.
While helpful, what would really be great is uploading the test .scap you used to make the video, too.
Yes, that makes sense. Where it’s a board with items in all directions, rather than a document or a spreadsheet with set lines, how else would you determine distance in multiple directions.
I’ve attached the Test file but there’s nothing special about it. I didn’t want to use my entire novel outline and upload that to YouTube for public view. So I just made a new Scapple with random things typed in it.
Thank you! Yeah there are some examples in there that seem a bit peculiar to me. The line to the second should definitely be shorter than the fourth for example. I’ll open a ticket with this and see if there is something we can do to improve it.
