In other software I regularly make a distinction between paragraph breaks (with styled space between) and forced line breaks or soft returns (no additional space between).
In MS Word, InDesign, etc. the soft return is SHIFT+RETURN
In TextEdit and other text-editing apps based on it, it’s possible to make a forced line break using CONTROL+RETURN (although such line breaks don’t survive being copied and pasted into, say, Word).
Here’s what I’ve observed in DevonThink:
Rich Text notes:
• shift+return doesn’t work, yielding a regular par break;
• control+return not only doesn’t work but it opens and bumps the cursor to a tags bar at the bottom of the editing screen. Turns out that DT has adopted control+return as the keyboard shortcut for Edit>Tags… and, when in a Rich Text note editing pane, it’s active.
Formatted notes:
• shift+return doesn’t work, yielding a regular par break;
• control+return works and the resulting line breaks survive being copied and pasted into other software. So that’s good.
It’s interesting, though, that DT’s keyboard shortcut for Edit>Tags is disabled when in the editing pane of Formatted notes. (Why that difference in behaviour between those two styles of note?)
So two issues really, which are probably connected:
- The expected behaviour for control+return (i.e. a forced line break) doesn’t occur when editing RichText notes; it does work when editing a Formatted Note;
- The keyboard shortcut for Edit>Tags… (control+return) is disabled when the cursor is in a Formatted Note editing pane, but not when in the editing pane for other notes types – Plain Text, Rich Text, Markdown. (The Edit>Tags… shortcut works for all note types when the note is simply selected in the item list and not being edited.)
Obviously, I’m happy that I can make forced line breaks in at least one note type, although I’d like to be able to make them in Rich Text notes too. How about it, Devon Technologies?
And I’m perplexed why DT would choose as a keyboard shortcut one that has an established function on the Mac, and then not disable it in all the relevant editing panes (i.e. Rich Text as well as Formatted Note).