"Transclude" rich text fields

If you guys are getting all Ted Nelson on us, you might be heading here anyway.

I would like to be able to include rich text fields from entities into documents.

I am looking to pull client research report creation further into Fibery. Using references to collate quotes and research into an entity I would like to be then create a report section as part of the entity as a rich text field.

I would then include a series of entities’ rich text fields within a document (adding with the “/” command) and be able to move them around when editing the document - reorder etc but edits occur in the entity associated with the research with workflow managed there.

At the end of the process copying all of the rich text and pasting into Word or whatever for final presentation.

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@ChrisSparkT We have this in mind. Next step is linked highlights, you will be able to select a part of text and link it to some entity. Transclusions are slightly more complex, so we will see how back-references and linked highlights will be used and consider its implementation.

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Great Discussion!

I think for the most part the way you have so much capability Entities and Docs are practically interchangeable in Fibery. Granted, I think there is a need for simple “Docs” at times, such as requirements, guidelines on how to use laptops in a company, etc. However, here are some of the things I think Docs of this nature should have, and why I’d just use an Entity in Fibery for this type of a Doc vs. your guys’ actual “Docs”:

  • references to other entities - can’t do with Docs right now
  • upcoming Highlights (just did the “Ted Nelson” preview and looks fantastic!)
  • many other attributes, such as multi-select which is basically “tags” in Fibery as things stand currently

To your point @ChrisSparkT, I think it would be great if you could take the references that auto-populate in an entity now, and “click to copy” into, for example, the referenced entity’s main description field.

Linked Highlights sounds terrific too @mdubakov, so this is a bit different than the auto reference in Highlights that happens simply by #mentioning within a Rich Text it sounds like? In this case, you actually choose some text, then “create” the highlight? Very sensible!

Thanks guys!

@B_Sp The chance to break down documents into smaller pieces each with their own logic and workflow has the chance to be pretty revolutionary when multiple people working together - this is still way too messy in either Microsoft or Google environments. Documents and/or whiteboards then become a sort of editorial staging area.

@mdubakov References experience is great so far but linked highlights would be insanely useful - have you considered the academic market because you’d be able to go head to head with things like Nvivo - just bang in a research template with some bookmarklets to push papers into citations etc.

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That’s a really creative and unexpected use of Fibery! I doubt @mdubakov and team have things like that in mind, but one of the great things about Fibery (and Notion) is how flexible it is, and indeed this results in surprisingly good applicability to unexpected problem domains. As long as these unusual uses are an emergent possibility from functionality being designed for the core use-cases, I think it’s great.

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