Renumber and reformat

Posted 4 Mar 2020 by JC

By request, the Contribute and Edit pages now have a “Renumber and reformat” option, above the “Written instructions” text entry box:

Click that button, and up pops a dialog:

With this dialog, you can renumber the rows in your knitspeak – for example:

• To make room for 10 more rows at the beginning of your pattern, set “Start” to 11 and “Increment” to 1. Your existing rows will get renumbered as 11, 12, 13, 14, etc. Add in new rows numbered 1 through 10.

• To make room for an unknown number of rows at the beginning, set “Start” to 100 (or some such) and “Increment” to 1. Your existing rows will get renumbered as 100, 101, 102, 103, etc. Add in as many new rows as you need. Then renumber again, with a “Start” of 1 and an “Increment” of 1, to get “normal” row numbering again.

• To make room for rows in the middle of your pattern, set “Start” to 1 and “Increment” to 10 (or some such). Your existing rows will get renumbered as 1, 11, 21, 31, etc. Add in the rows that you need. Then renumber again, with a “Start” of 1 and an “Increment” of 1.

Each time you use this dialog, your knitspeak will get reformatted. Here you have two choices:

• “Condensed” means that identical rows will be displayed in a group – for example,

  Rounds 2, 4, 6, and 8: Purl.

• “Expanded” means that identical rows will be displayed individually – for example,

  Round 2: Purl.
  Round 4: Purl.
  Round 6: Purl.
  Round 8: Purl.

Note that you can also reformat without renumbering, if you so choose. Just uncheck “Renumber” before selecting “Go!” This can be a handy way of expanding your knitspeak before editing it.

Caveats:

• You can only renumber and reformat knitspeak that the site can understand. But the knitspeak doesn’t have to be knitable. So row 1: k37; row 2: p27 can be renumbered, even if it can’t be knit.

• All the usual knitspeak rules still apply. Specifically, you can’t have negative row numbers.

• The renumber function does not save anything, just like the “Check the knitspeak” button doesn’t save anything. To save your work (and draw a stitch map), you have to press the “Go for it!” button, as usual.

• You can specify a negative “Increment”... but you probably wouldn’t want to. Setting “Start” to 10 and “Increment” to -1 would renumber your existing rows as 10, 9, 8, 7, etc., effectively reversing your stitch pattern, which rarely produces meaningful results. But, hey, you’re welcome to try, and see what silliness results.

Questions? Comments? You know where to find me.