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Mind versus tree navigation; html versus rtf editing
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Posted by Harlander
Mar 18, 2007 at 06:02 PM
Maybe another program might be of interest: Topicscape 3D, a 3-dimensional Mindmapper. It was featured at Bitsdujour a few days ago and I have just found a review on donationcoder.com. Here’s the link:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=7805.msg55102#msg55102
Andreas
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Mar 18, 2007 at 07:15 PM
Graham, CRIMPer that I am, I have tried PB also, an have found it is OK if it is not too complex. Otherwise I find it heavy going to have a sense of what all is there. So I agree with you re PB4 beta.
Daly
Graham Rhind wrote:
>I think a distinction needs to be made between mind maps (as I know them, which, as
>Cassius said, could be expressed in a tree-like linear form); and non-tree-like
>navigation/outliner systems, such as Personal Brain.
>
>An item in a tree can have one
>parent, and multiple children. That’s the basis and at the same time the limitation.
>After that, most tree-like outliners have to think of (mostly awkward) ways of
>creating internal links between branches, such as creating virtual copies of the
>files or having text wiki links.
>
>What a tool like Personal Brain allows (or should
>allow) is links from any item to any item, regardless of its place in any hierarchy, so
>you get a web rather than a tree. By choosing your topic you see all the topics linked to
>it, regardless of where they might be if the items were tree-based.
>
>I see this as
>being a graphical version of a web or wiki page - it’s a network. Some people like that
>sort of thing. Others like the tree structure, which is inherently neat and
>understandable. I use tree-based outliners, but hate the way most handle internal
>linking, and wondered whether graphical interfaces would help.
>
>By the way, I’ve
>seen the current Personal Brain 4 beta and it seems to me to still be all over the place,
>so I think there’s a way to go yet ....
>
>Graham
>
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 18, 2007 at 10:48 PM
One navigational approach has been overlooked in this discussion: Wikis. And, in particular, Connected Text, which may be unique in the number of navigational schemes it uses. First, of course, is the Wiki linking, which makes every item a parent to all the items linked to it. Then, the developer has installed the graphical navigator, which seems to operate similarly to Personal Brain—though, not with as much nimbleness. Finally, Connected Text has a topics panel, which is basically an index of topics (or items). This topics panel acts very similarly to the hierarchical tree of most two-panel outliners, except that each topic is listed at top level with all the topics it is linked to listed as sub topics. Very ingenious, I think.
Steve Z.
Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Mar 19, 2007 at 07:26 AM
Cassius wrote:
>I have never been a “visual” thinker and so have never used mind mapping. I have
>occasionally tlloed at a mind map screen shot, but all I’ve seen seem to be capable of
>being re-expressed as a left-pane outline. Am I missing something?
I think you actually may be. It can be surprising how many people saw little special value in mindmapping, until they actually seriously tried it. I, for example, never seriously tried mindmapping because it seem ridiculuous, until it was recommended by a legal writing expert that I respect. It really is hard to see why mindmapping should be as effective as it is. Essentially, I think, it is the most effective way I know of to bring chunks of information before your mind.
But then, others, like Dominick, have obviously used mindmapping extensively, and still find little specific value. Who benefits and who doesn’t. One thought I’ve had is that the “visual thinker” angle is misleading. Consider that the virtue of *any* outline is that it uses consistent visual cues to indicate the relationsips between parts and wholes. The difference is that in a mind map, the visual cues are more prominent. I think it may in fact be those who are NOT visual thinkers who benefit most. If spatial visualization is not a strength, the mindmap provides a visible spatial structure, perhaps substituting for less conscious and inexplicit visual structuring that the _low_ visual thinker might find harder to generate.
Posted by Graham Rhind
Mar 19, 2007 at 11:01 AM
Connected Text’s mixture of graphical and tree-based navigation is exactly what I’d like to see more tools have. But its editor is, to me, very backward and labour intensive, requiring all sorts of tags and reminding me of the word processor I was using in 1985. When I saw that, I uninstalled it in a hurry ...
Graham
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>One navigational approach has been overlooked in this discussion: Wikis. And, in
>particular, Connected Text, which may be unique in the number of navigational
>schemes it uses. First, of course, is the Wiki linking, which makes every item a parent
>to all the items linked to it. Then, the developer has installed the graphical
>navigator, which seems to operate similarly to Personal Brain—though, not with as
>much nimbleness. Finally, Connected Text has a topics panel, which is basically an
>index of topics (or items). This topics panel acts very similarly to the hierarchical
>tree of most two-panel outliners, except that each topic is listed at top level with
>all the topics it is linked to listed as sub topics. Very ingenious, I think.
>
>Steve Z.