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Quest Ladder / Shortcut placeholders
Shortcut placeholders
Put the two or three things you insert constantly one click away instead of three.
A small convenience, multiplied by every field you write.
What they are
Shortcut placeholders define the chips on the Insert tray's quick row. They are not a new kind of value — they are a faster route to a value you already have, whether that is a dynamic variable or a short expression over several.
Leave the step empty and you still get something: automatic chips for a, b and an expression, built from your first two variables. That default suits a simple type and runs out quickly on anything larger.
Making your own
Add shortcut creates a row with three fields:
- Chip label — what you will see on the tray. Short is better; the label is the whole point.
- Type — Dynamic variable or Expression.
- Value — the variable itself, or the expression to insert.
Seed defaults from variables builds the automatic set for you as a starting point, which is the quickest way to begin: take the generated chips and then add the two or three that are specific to this question.
When they earn their keep
On a type with three variables and a short stem, they save nothing. They matter on the types where you are placing the same value into a stem, four choices, three hints and five solution steps — which is most types once they are finished.
The other case is a compound expression you use repeatedly. A chip labelled a+b that inserts the expression means you write it once correctly rather than fifteen times hopefully.
If you find yourself wanting a shortcut for a value that appears in six places, consider a computed fact instead. A fact is defined once and can be corrected once; a shortcut inserts text that then lives in six places independently.