Notes not attaching where I selected

Question

I have noticed a few times in a couple different projects that my note has not attached to the word that I selected when I was inserting the note. I can usually find it by opening the notes for the project and sorting by recently created and then re-attaching it to the correct word. However I don’t always realize that it did not attach to the correct word and this creates confusion for the team when they try to read and respond. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Answer 1

I ran the check and there were no errors found.

Comments

If it happens again, I would definitely submit a Problem Report immediately after you notice it.

I realize this is happening immediately after you create a note and not after a change to the text, but I also agree with the suggestion to select a phrase instead of just a word. This will cut down on the chance of it moving around later if there is a change in the text.

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Ok, so I have been selecting text to attach my note, but today, the text moved when I selected even though I do not have permission to make changes in this chapter. So instead of ‘by punishing you,’ it now says ‘by g punishinyou.’ I reported this to Paratext through the give feedback option when it happened months ago on another project. I was reassured that no change actually happened to the project. I tried to attach a note to this text even though it had changed. That note has disappeared. I can’t find it in any books. I tried opening and closing Paratext, but the messed up text remains. I’m not sure what to do to get the text to return to normal and be able to attach a note to it.

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Do you have “Drag and Drop” turned on in your Paratext settings? You might try turning this off and see if the issue of text moving stops. Can you verify that under normal circumstances if you try to edit the text you get a warning message that you don’t have permission?

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I just disabled drag and drop so hopefully that stops this in the future. Yes, under normal circumstances, I get the warning that I do not have permission to change the text. I know because I tried to fix the messed up text.

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nomadic+consultant - Closing and reopening Paratext will not revert the text. However, if you change chapters (or books) and go back - the text should revert to the way it was before the drag/drop. NOTE that the note may still not be in the correct location.

The reason that your note doesn’t show up on the misspelled word is because it doesn’t actually exist in the underlying text.

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@nomadic+consultant Would you be able to report this again, so the developers know it’s still an issue and can gain any additional context from a new report? You can reference the original report so the developers can link them.

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james_post:

Would you be able to report this again, so the developers know it’s still an issue and can gain any additional context from a new report

We’ve already promoted the original issue for us to work on and anon848905 has added some details. Please don’t bother reporting it again (it will just be closed as a duplicate ).

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The text has now reverted to the correct form. Probably since I moved on to another chapter as anon848905 has pointed out. Thanks! I just rewrote my note since I can’t find the original.

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The usual behaviour I see is when you edit text so that the oridinally highlighted text isn’t there any more a note moves to the start of that verse. If something bigger changes (eg versification) I would look at the start of the chapter and failing that the start of the book in case the original note disappeared to there.

Answer 2

I have never seen this happen as you described it. What commonly does happen is that you insert a note, and then changes are made to the text. Since the note is attached to a particular word or phrase, the note then becomes detatched from its original location, and so it moves itself to the beginning of the verse. If there is a very similar word or phrase elsewhere in the verse, Paratext will occasionally guess that that is the intended location for the note and attach it there. Is it possible that one team member is making the changes you suggested and that is what is causing the note to become detached?

Comments

Hi Stephen+Katt,

No, since the note is not attached to the right place immediately after I make it. That’s why I wondered if anyone else is experiencing the problem. I highlight a word or phrase, although so far this has only happened with single words, then insert a note. Once I select ok, the note just disappears. Usually I don’t even see it in the verse at all so I open notes for the verse and reattach it to the correct word.

In His Hands,

nomadic+consultant

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nomadic+consultant,
Since the note is immediately attaching incorrectly, it sounds like this is the sort of thing where you want to submit a problem report.

One random thing that I would check is whether your language has any composed/decomposed characters, where multiple characters or keystrokes become a single unicode character. The wordlist and other tools have sometimes had issues with identifying words depending on the setting of composed/decomposed characters. That’s just a random guess based on my experiences.

Answer 3

That happens to me when I am not careful to well and truly select the word I’m intending to attach the note to. Often just one click won’t do, because all that may do is make the window active again. Then often the note will attach to the same word as the previous note I just wrote. So I find I have to double-check that the cursor is in the right place and probably double-click on the word I want…

Comments

I usually select the word that I am committing on so that shouldn’t be the issue, but I will pay attention to that in the future.

Answer 4

Just in case you don’t know where to find it, sending a problem report is done via Help > Give feedback from within Paratext.

Answer 5

This happens sometimes to me.

I realised that it happens, when I select the translated text or the back translation in a text collection instead of it’s own window.

Comments

Ok, so I had this happen again, but in a stranger way. I was making a comment in Habakkuk 2:13. I just clicked in the verse, but did not highlight the words. When I selected ok, I noticed that the note was not where I wanted it. So I did a filter for recently created notes in chapter 2, but it was not there. I opened the filter to all the books and found my note in Genesis 29. It was in the same project, but a completely different book. Any one else have this problem?

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I’ve not seen this happen, but the first question that comes to me is: Does the chapter/verse check run without errors in Habakkuk? Make sure there are now chapter/verse errors in the text to avoid other problems. I’m not saying this is the issue, but just something to always check.

Answer 6

If I select a word that has several occurrences in the verse or if edits happen then often notes move onto the wrong occurrence of the word. The best solution seems to be to select enough context (not just one word) so that there’s unlikely to be ambiguity. Paratext chiefly locates notes by identifying the word(s) and the verse the note is attached to, but with common words or where we have other repetition within a verse this quickly becomes ambiguous. I think there’s an effort to remember the StartPosition of the note, but this doesn’t seem to help enough.