Hierarchy

Your Tinderbox document has two basic kinds of structure: one is the structure formed by links between notes. The other is the hierarchical structure of the document.

A Tinderbox note can contain other notes, which can contain other notes, and so on. You can think of this as chapters containing sections containing divisions; or topics containing subtopics; or in any way that fits your work.

On the next two pages are four views of the same hierarchical structure:

An organisational chart:

Tinderbox: treemap view:

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Tinderbox: outline view:

Tinderbox: chart view:

TERMINOLOGY

Several terms are used to describe relationships within a hierarchy:

parent: the item one level up. Precambrian is the parent of Archaean. Phanerozoic and Precambrian both have the same parent—Geological Time.

siblings: items that have the same parent. Phanerozoic and Precambrian are siblings. Jurassic is the younger sibling of Cretaceous.

child: an item one level down. In Tinderbox, when a note contains other notes, those notes are its children. Mesozoic Era has three children: Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic. Archaean has no children.

descendant: a child, or a child of a child, and so on. Phanerozoic Eon has many descendants, including Mesozoic Era, Tertiary, and Triassic.

ancestor: a parent, or a parent of a parent, and so on. Archaean’s ancestors are Precambrian and Geological Time.

grandparent: specifically the parent of a note's parent. Geological Time is the grandparent of Archaean.

root: the item that has no parent. Geological Time is the root of this hierarchy. In a Tinderbox document, the document as a whole is the root: it contains the top-level notes, and nothing contains it.

SEEING HIERARCHY

Map views

A map view shows one level of the document’s hierarchy, by showing the children of a note as contained within its box.

Treemap views

A treemap view shows the hierarchical structure of the document as boxes within boxes, taking up the entire window. Treemaps use space very efficiently, so you can see many notes at once.

Chart views

A chart view shows the hierarchical structure of the document as a tree chart. The "root" of the tree is at the left of the window, and the branches extend towards the right.

Outline views

An outline view shows the hierarchical structure of the document as an indented outline.