Apply, discard & undo

Editing a record in Linea Codex is a two-step rhythm. As you type, you’re working on a draft — your changes aren’t part of the document yet. When the draft is how you want it, you apply it; if you change your mind, you discard it. This keeps a half-finished edit from affecting the rest of your tree until you say it’s ready.

Applying your changes

Apply commits your draft into the document. Use the Apply button in the editor toolbar, or press Cmd+S (Ctrl+S on Windows / Linux). The button stands out whenever you have changes waiting to be applied.

Apply only succeeds if your draft is valid GEDCOM — it has to parse. If there’s a problem (the text doesn’t parse, you’ve pasted more than one record, or you’ve reused an identifier that’s already taken), Linea Codex tells you what’s wrong and leaves the draft as-is so you can fix it. The validation markers point you to the spot.

Apply is not Save

Apply writes your draft into the document in memory. Save writes the whole document to disk. They’re separate steps — and separate shortcuts: Apply is Cmd+S / Ctrl+S, Save is Shift+Cmd+S / Shift+Ctrl+S (macOS / Windows · Linux). So a normal edit is: type → Apply → (later) Save. See Saving & exporting.

Discarding your changes

Discard throws the draft away and restores the record to its last applied state. Use the Discard button in the toolbar; it’s available whenever there’s something to discard. (When there’s nothing to undo, the button simply tells you No changes to discard.)

Knowing when something is unsaved

A record with changes you haven’t dealt with is flagged in the tab strip with an Unsaved changes marker. There are two layers to this, and the marker covers the first:

• A draft you haven’t applied — your typing, not yet committed to the document. Apply or Discard resolves it.
• Applied changes you haven’t saved — committed to the document but not yet written to disk. Save resolves it.

Undo and redo

While you edit, Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z undoes and Cmd+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y redoes; both are also in the Edit menu. Applying a record starts its editor undo fresh.

Note

Converting or relabelling GEDCOM versions clears the undo history — those operations warn you before they do.

Working across several records

The tab strip can keep several records open at once, and each tab has its own draft — switching tabs doesn’t apply or discard anything on its own. If you do something that needs your drafts settled first (or you try to leave with several drafts open), Linea Codex gathers them and offers Apply all or Discard all so nothing is lost by accident.

One case is stricter: while you’re adding a relative or a brand-new record, that tab is held open until you finish it — Finish the new record before continuing — so a half-created person can’t be left dangling. Apply it to keep it, or discard it to drop it.

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That completes the Phase-1 editor guides. Back to the Editor overview, or continue to Saving & exporting.