Interactive editing¶

The commands in First outline build a tree from the shell. This chapter builds the same shape of tree from inside the TUI, so you can see how insertion, renaming, indentation, reordering, copying, and cloning feel as keystrokes rather than flags. Each stage below is checked with cub render, so you can compare your outline against what it should look like as you go.

Nothing here is destructive: nothing is written to disk until you press Ctrl-S, and quitting with unsaved changes asks for confirmation first.

Start a session¶

cub new project.leo --headline "Project"
cub project.leo

The outline opens with a single root, Project, selected. The explicit cub tui project.leo command does the same thing.

Keys used in this chapter¶

The full list is always available inside the TUI by pressing ?.

Insert and rename¶

i always inserts a new sibling immediately after the current selection, so building a child means insert-then-demote rather than insert-as-child.

With Project selected:

1. Press i. A new node, New Headline, appears as a second root and opens for editing. Type Source, then Enter.
2. Press Ctrl-→ to demote Source under Project.
3. With Source still selected, press i, type Documentation, Enter.
4. Press i again, type Tasks, Enter.

Renaming works the same way in reverse: select a node and press h instead of i. Try it — select Documentation, press h, change it to Docs, then h again to change it back.

Quit to the shell with q without saving, or open another terminal, and check the shape so far:

cub render project.leo

- Project
  - Source
  - Documentation
  - Tasks

Add a grandchild¶

Back in cub project.leo, select Source and repeat the insert-then-demote pattern one level deeper:

1. Press i, type main.rs, Enter. It lands as a sibling of Source, still under Project.
2. Press Ctrl-→ to demote main.rs under Source.

- Project
  - Source
    - main.rs
  - Documentation
  - Tasks

Reorder siblings¶

Select Tasks and press Ctrl-↑ twice. Each press swaps it with the sibling above:

- Project
  - Source
    - main.rs
  - Tasks
  - Documentation

Press Ctrl-↓ twice to put Tasks back where it was — Ctrl-↑/Ctrl-↓ only reorder among siblings that share a parent; they never change the parent.

Copy, cut, and paste¶

Select Source (with main.rs still nested under it) and press c. The status line confirms the tree was copied. Select Tasks, then press v:

- Project
  - Source
    - main.rs
  - Documentation
  - Tasks
  - Source
    - main.rs

The pasted Source is a second, independent tree — its nodes have fresh identities, even though the headlines are identical and render has no way to tell them apart. Select it and press x to cut it again, which restores the tree from the previous step. x copies before removing, so the clipboard still holds what you just cut.

Paste a clone¶

A clone is different: it is the same node at a second position, not a copy of it. Select Tasks, then press Shift-V to paste Source there as a clone instead of a copy:

- Project
  - Source
    - main.rs
  - Documentation
  - Tasks
    - Source ↪ clone

render marks the repeated occurrence with ↪ clone and does not repeat its descendants — but it is still the same node, so editing it edits every occurrence. Select either Source — the one under Project or the one under Tasks — and press h. Rename it to Sources, Enter.

- Project
  - Sources
    - main.rs
  - Documentation
  - Tasks
    - Sources ↪ clone

Both occurrences changed together, because there was only ever one headline to change. v (plain paste) deliberately avoids this by giving the pasted copy fresh identities instead.

Edit a body¶

Select main.rs and press o. This opens the node's body in $EDITOR as a temporary file. Add a line such as:

fn main() {
    println!("hello from the outline");
}

Save and close the editor. Back in the TUI, the status line reports the body changed, and a small dot marker appears next to main.rs in the outline to mark that it now carries body text — the same marker render and inspect use for any node with a non-empty body.

Find a headline¶

Press Ctrl-P, then type main. The list narrows as you type; ↓/↑ cycle between matches, and Enter selects the active match and closes the prompt. Press Esc instead to cancel and return to whatever was selected before you opened find.

Save and verify¶

Press Ctrl-S to write the file, then q to quit. From the shell, confirm the result:

cub inspect project.leo
cub validate project.leo

inspect lists Project with Sources, Documentation, and Tasks as children, main.rs under Sources with the body you typed, and the cloned Sources under Tasks shown as a back-reference (=<gnx>) rather than a repeated subtree — that back-reference is inspect's way of marking the same clone render marked with ↪ clone. validate should print an empty JSON list.