Comprehensive Example

This example works through a re-arrangement of the toolbars and some other features to maximize the effective workspace. This customization is based on the preferences of a professional writer who uses TexNotes Pro every day.

Before starting, he checked-out the standard defaults in Layouts, using Layout Chooser. Unfortunately, none were completely to his liking, although he did decide to use Standard as his starting point. He also made sure TexNotes Pro was in Advanced mode. If you intend to follow this example step-by-step, make sure you also have the same settings when you begin.

He did look at Layout View Options in the View menu, but decided that he needed all the normal default selections checked. (That is, everything except Show Docked Panel Headers.)

Toolbar customization, and the exact detail of this example, are dependent on your screen and TexNotes Pro window resolution and dimensions. This example is based on a 17-inch monitor, 1024 x 768 pixels, 96 DPI (96 pixels to the inch). The TexNotes Pro window is sized at 955 x 700 pixels, or 25 cm x 18 cm.

The first thing he looked at was the Paragraph Format toolbar. He realized that he never used the three vertical alignment buttons, so why not get rid of them to shorten the toolbar? This is easily accomplished. Click Customize Toolbars in the View menu, and select the Paragraph Format toolbar.

The Current toolbar buttons are shown in the right-hand pane.
Click each of the unwanted buttons, Top Middle Bottom, and press the

button to remove them from the toolbar. He also removed one of the Separators. Remember to click Apply to activate the changes.

As he was doing this, he also realized that he never clicked on the Undo and Redo buttons in this toolbar. There was no particular reason for this, he used these functions a lot, but it was his habit to select them from the Edit menu. So he also took away these buttons and another Separator.

The Paragraph Format toolbar can now be moved onto the Menu bar, between Help and Simple. This uses an otherwise empty part of the main TexNotes Pro window.

There is an obvious danger in making this modification. The actual number of entries in the Menu bar varies according to the current operation. This affects its length, and thus the amount of free space.

If you do decide to make this move, you should either perform it when the Menu bar is at maximum size, or accept that some of the buttons on your newly-moved toolbar are not immediately accessible. (You simply click the chevron to make them visible, of course. It's not a big downside.)

He then moved the Font Format toolbar up a line so that it was effectively added to the Main toolbar. This meant that only two lines at the top of the TexNotes pro window were devoted to toolbars. The centre part now looks like this:

As he was very satisfied with these changes, and to make sure they were preserved, he saved his customizing work at this point by using the Layout facilities in the View menu.

To preserve your customizing changes select Change Layout in the View menu, and then Save Current Layout As.

Save Current Layout As displays a standard Windows Save File dialog box.

The filename Luke01.tnw is used in this example.

The next time Change Layout is selected, Luke01.tnw is shown at the head of the list.

The writer chose his own name to use as the filename so that it would be easy to remember. He also realized that he might make several Layouts as he became more familiar with the interface, so he added an easy-to-increment number to the end of the filename.

This was something of a dilemma; sometimes he found it very useful, but in practice, several hours could pass without him even glancing at it. He decided it was overkill to make and use two different layouts which only differed in that one displayed the Ruler.

You can, of course, suppress Ruler display simply by right-clicking it and choosing Hide Ruler. It can then be re-displayed by selecting Show Rulers from the View menu.

He took the same approach to the Document Header. It was something he used sometimes, so it seemed better to simply toggle Show Document Header from Layout View Options in the View menu, as needed.

It was obviously very convenient to be able to simply click the Show/Hide button on the StatusBar Tools toolbar, but he didn't really like the way it automatically docked on the right side of the work area and effectively shrank the Notebook canvas.

After a little thought, he realized that although he used Navigator Outline a lot, he never actually worked with it at the same time as using Tools. This made the solution obvious.

Click

in StatusBar Tools to display the Tools panel. Then select the Anchor point and drag it over (and very slightly above) Navigator and release. The Tools panel takes over the position of Navigator which is pushed lower down.

This picture illustrates the left-hand part of the TexNotes Pro window, after the Tools panel has been dropped over Navigator.

When you click on some of the tabs, Table for example, you may find you need more vertical space.

Just drag Navigator even further down to achieve this.

You can also do this to ensure that all the tabs are visible in Tools.

When he had done this, and because he wasn't completely convinced that he would use this refinement, he saved the Layout using the filename Luke02.tnw.

Now, whenever Show/Hide button on the StatusBar Tools toolbar is clicked, or whenever the Tools panel is automatically displayed, it doesn't shrink the available NoteBook canvas.

He normally had Quick Search turned off, as he always used the complete Search facility in Navigator. Conversely, he used the Color Bar a lot and liked having it there, so he left that alone.

Equally, he found the Document Tabs facility extremely useful. He also knew he could click the chevron and select Hide Document Tabs if he did ever want to temporarily suppress their display.

Which left the Insert Tools toolbar, but this was far too valuable to remove. After some reflection he realized that what he didn't have visible was the Table Tools toolbar. Couldn't he drag that to the right of the Insert Tools toolbar to fit in that space?

When he tried, he discovered that it was just a little too long using his particular combination of Window Size and Notebook canvas size. It was perfectly usable, but not all the buttons were immediately visible.

After a little more thought, he saw that there were some buttons on the Insert Tools toolbar that he never used.

Safe in the knowledge that all these facilities are available in the Insert menu, he used Customize Toolbars in the View menu to modify the Insert Tools toolbar. He removed the Clear HyperLinks, Insert Template from File, Time, and Quick Bullet buttons.

This was more-or-less exactly what he wanted. There was even a little space left in case he wanted to add another button later.

The last step was to save the Layout again, using the filename Luke03.tnw. Much later, after using these layouts for some time and after a little more experimentation and some tiny adjustments, he settled on this Layout and deleted the other versions.

The Layout named Luke03.tnw is automatically saved to the TexNotes Pro/Layouts folder. All other necessary files are created automatically, so that it is available in Layout Chooser.

You can also have a preview image in Layout Chooser, if you wish. Simply take a picture (screen capture) of the TexNotes Pro window with the Luke03.tnw Layout active. Then resize the image and put it in the TexNotes Pro/Layouts folder. Make sure the preview image filename is Luke03.tnw and use PNG image format.

When making these kinds of detailed customizations, you may find it helpful to work with an onscreen ruler. You can download an excellent free one from: