Converting elements
You have learned in a previous lesson, Easier editing, that some
toolbar buttons allow to convert the text selection to commonly used
elements such as emphasis, literal, link, etc.
In fact, these buttons all invoke commands based on 
EditConvert (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-T, T like Transform). The
Convert command may be applied to the node selection as well as to
the text selection.
When a single element is selected , Convert, to make it simple, allows to change the name of this element. For example, you can select a note element and convert it to a caution element. You can select an itemizedlist and convert it to an orderedlist.
Note that the Convert command will not let you convert a note to an example because the content model of a note element is not compatible with the content model of an example element (the example element must begin with a title child element).
When a node range is selected,
Convert allows to wrap this node range into a new element. For
example, if you first select a programlisting and then use 
SelectExtend Selection to Following Sibling
(keyboard shortcut: Esc Right_Arrow) to extend
the node selection to the calloutlist found after it, you can
wrap these two elements into an informalexample.
What is a node range?
Some of the commands of XMLmind XML Editor (e.g. Paste, Replace, Convert) can be applied to a node range. What we call a node range here is one or more consecutive sibling nodes. A node range may comprise different types of nodes: element, text node, comment, processing-instruction. What counts is that all the nodes have the same parent element and are consecutive.
Now what if you want to wrap a para into a
blockquote? You cannot use Convert to do that because this
command merely changes the name of an element when a single element is
selected. When you need to perform this kind of task, you'll have to use a
variant of command Convert: 
EditConvert [wrap] (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift-T). Unlike plain Convert,
Convert [wrap] always wraps the selection into a new
element.
