⚡️ Ideas
Winston Winston Jul 16, 2023

Enabling Contextual Notes Within Field Contents

Explain the problem as you see it

There is a challenge of tracking down the origins of nodes especially when filling out fields of parents, instead of nesting them directly under the parent. Tana currently lacks the ability to add nodes as contextual content within fields, and due to this, we lose a lot of that power of contextual notes that Tana offers.

I usually start by referencing a node (ie. 'altered consciousness') like so:
image.png

I then decide to want to add some notes from the Fish textbook into the referenced node like so:
image.png

What happens above is that I am just editing the node, but I am unable to leave a breadcrumb (i.e. in future, I will not be able to know where this particular information is living and coming from at a glance). This behaves differently from when I nest it directly as a contextual note.


If I nest the node directly, I hit ctrl-shift-down and it creates that zig-zag line, indicating contextual note created, like so:
image.png

After doing this, this way shows me the breadcrumbs (to Fish's Clinical Psychopathology):
image.png

Therefore, it works with nesting children, but not with nesting children inside fields.

Why is this a problem for you?

There's an inconsistency here, which is possible when I nest the node, but not possible when I want to nest the node within a field instead. The other issue that arises is that the breadcrumb of the attribution itself becomes lost.

If I use the conventional way of turning it into text, I am unable to insert it into the appropriate field and fit it into existing context, like so - here the text about frontal lobe dementia cannot be inserted directly into the pre-existing context.
image.png

Suggest a solution

I suggest that ctrl-shift-down allows us to select whether to:
(A) add into an existing field as a contextual node
(B) or nest as a child node under the parent as contextual content

⁨1⁩ ⁨Comment⁩

I'm with you recognizing this issue with Tana as-is.

I'm sure you thought of this, but what I usually do to leave the breadcrumb connecting the contents is to copy whatever I wrote within the referenced node and paste into the "context" node. I'm not settled on where the information should "live" vs where it should just "be a reference", but either way, at least I get a reference linking both nodes.