The Footnote sub-menu of the Note menu provides method to create a new note from a selected word or phrase, with the intent that it acts as a reference to the source text. In one combined action, Footnote creation:
- creates a new note
- creates a text link, of link type "note", from the selected text to the new note
- creates a link, of link type "Note +", from the new note back to the selected text
- the current selected text becomes the name of the new footnote.
Depending on which footnote creation option is chosen the location of the new note is either as a:
- sibling: next sibling to the source note
- child: a new sibling container 'Notes' is created and the footnote is a child of this container. All child footnotes of sibling notes share the same 'Notes' container. Different containers use discrete 'Notes' containers for their footnotes.
It might seem odd to have this placement choice and 'child' might seem the generally logical choice. In an outline, a container can easily be expanded/collapsed to show footnotes. However, if working in map view and desiring to keep everything in view on the same map, the 'sibling' option avoids having to find child footnotes and drag them up to their parent's level just so they show up on the map.
The different link types used for links to/from the footnote make it easier to identify notes with footnotes or footnotes themselves.
Although a possible end point for Tinderbox footnotes are article footnotes when data is exported to other formats, there is no method for collecting and inserting them at the end of an article; this must be done by the user's export template design. Using the 'child' option does however place all footnote from sibling notes into a single container, aiding export.
An alternative way to create new notes from source text is to simply drag a text selection to an Outline or Map view.