Manipulating objects

You can promote and demote objects in the hierarchy You can also manipulate the contents of the object heading and object text attributes.

You can:

Promoting and demoting objects

When you promote an object it moves up one level in the hierarchy, becoming the next sibling of the object that was its parent. When you demote an object it moves down one level, becoming the last child of the object that was its preceding sibling.

Children of objects that are being promoted or demoted move with their parent to the new location in the hierarchy. If you select more than one object, the hierarchy of the selected objects is maintained after they are promoted or demoted.

To make sure that the correct hierarchical relationships between objects are maintained, the promotion and demotion of objects is subject to rules.
  • If there is more than one sibling, you can promote only the last object. The only exception to this rule is if all the siblings after the object that you want to promote are deleted, you can promote the object.
  • If there is more than one sibling, you cannot demote the first object. An object must have a preceding sibling that it can become the child of.
  • You cannot make an object the child of a deleted object. For this reason, you cannot demote an object if all its preceding siblings are deleted objects.
  • You cannot promote or demote a deleted object. However, you can promote or demote an object that has deleted children. The object is promoted or demoted and its deleted children are promoted or demoted along with it.
  • You cannot promote or demote objects when a sort or filter is applied to the module.

To promote an object, select it and click Edit > Object > Promote.

To demote an object, select it and click Edit > Object > Demote.

Swapping Object Heading and Object Text attributes

When you swap the attributes the contents of the Heading attribute becomes Object Text and the contents of the Text attribute becomes Object Heading. You must have modify access to the Object Heading and Object Text attributes.

This operation can be used on objects that contain both Object Heading and Object Text, and on objects that contain one or other.

Important: When you swap Object Text with Object Heading, the text might be truncated, as the Object Heading attribute cannot hold as many characters as the Object Text attribute

To swap the Object Heading and Object Text attribute values, select the object and click Edit > Object > Swap.

Splitting Object Heading from Object Text

When you split an object, a new object is created to replace the selected object, and the text in the Object Heading is moved into the new object. The selected object retains the Object Text, and becomes the first child of the new object. You must have modify access to the Object Heading attribute and read access to the Object Text attribute.

If the selected object has any children, they become siblings of the selected object. The new object that contains the Object Heading is their parent.

Note: If the module is open in shareable edit mode, you cannot split the top object in a locked section. However, you can split child objects.

To split Object Heading from Object Text, select the object that you want to split and click Edit > Object > Split.

Splitting objects

You can split the contents of the Object Text attribute across multiple objects. Optionally, you can create links between the original object and the new objects.

To split Object Text, select the object and click Tools > Functions > Split Object Text. Select the text that you want to keep in the current object and specify a position for the new object. Optionally, select Create Links to create links between the objects. Click Apply to split the object text. A new object is created, and the text that was not selected is moved into the new object.

Merging object text

You can create an object whose Object Text consists of the Object Text of one or more objects. You can create the object in the same module as the objects that you are merging, or in a different module.

To merge object text, open the module that contains the objects whose Object Text you want to merge, and click Tools > Functions > Merge Objects. A list of all the objects in the current module is displayed. Select the objects whose Object Text you want to merge and then specify where you want to create the object. Optionally, select Create Links to create links between the source objects and the new object. Click OK.


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