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A note may be designated as a separator. A separator is drawn in outline view as a horizontal line. The note's name, if any, is shown centred in a box-out in the middle of the separator line. If the note has no Name value or it is "untitled' the separator shows as a solid line. For separators no duplicate name warning is given if the Name value is left blank.

Just as adornments are only visible in Map view, separators are only shown as separators in Outline view (and exceptionally in Treemaps). However, in all other views except Map view, a separator is visible as if a normal note. By the same token children of a separator are hidden in Map view, as their parent container is not drawn on the map. The latter can be a useful way to 'hide' content, either notes or containers, in a map without removing the content from the overall document.

Note that separators were not originally designed to be able to be containers but rather like a (non-smart) adornment for separating groups of siblings in outline views. However, they can be containers; even an agent may be a separator. Because of their possible container role, treemap views always show separators (as if they are normal notes). No note icon is shown for a separator note so the age/level of content/age cannot be judged although the separator is a fully functional note. In major views other than Outline and Map views, a separator is shown as a normal note.

A separator can still have normal note features like a Rule and OnAdd action and become a container by having notes added to it.

If data columns are enabled for the Outline view, separators still draw normally. Thus the data columns are not displayed for separator notes, unlike all other items in the outline.

Even if not needed as a separator for Outline purposes, making a Map item into a separator can be a way of hiding it (temporarily) from Map view; note that when hidden like this it cannot be selected from the Map either. To make the item visible to the map it is necessary to find and select it in a view other than map and remove the separator status.

Separators, but not adornments, are included in $SiblingOrder whereas both are included in $OutlineOrder. This makes sense when considering export is where SiblingOrder values are most regularly used and where adornments do not appear. See more on separators in a map vs. outline context.

A separator can have inbound and outbound links. It can also have note text; in such cases Treemap views will show a 'dogear' symbol denoting text content.

To designate a note as a separator, check the Separator checkbox in the Prototype sub-tab of the Properties Inspector, or set the value of $Separator to true.

Separator notes default to exporting as HTML (only) if either:

  • they contain both a title and have note text (i.e. have $Name and $Text values)


  • they contain child notes

If exporting Separator notes with no text (i.e. with children) ensure either the template will link through to the child content or add a ^childLinks^ into the $Text of the separator note.

Making a note into a separator does not alter any of its font-size related attributes but when drawing an outline view Tinderbox draws separator titles very slightly smaller than for normal notes. Likely this is done so as not to expand line height, i.e. allowing for the box around the separator title. This effect is more noticeable as zoom level is decreased.

Duplicated separators retain their original name rather than receive the name suffix " copy" making it easier to clone unnamed separators.

From v8.2.1, separators no longer appear in hyperbolic view or in the attribute browser.