ConnectedText; any case studies?

Posted by Chris Murtland
Feb 15, 2012 at 07:34 PM

I’m also becoming a big fan of ConnectedText. I could probably go on and on about it, but here are a few highlights:

* markup - Markup actually makes more sense to me than things like toolbar buttons. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been working with markup languages for almost 20 years. In any case, once you learn the markup, you can type freely and apply basic formatting without interrupting your typing. Tables can be tricky, but then I only use them sparingly.

* focus - I find the general experience of working with one conceptual topic at a time conducive to focus. While the topic page can “expand” outward via links, and the topic itself can be a concept of varying granularity, information I’m not directly concerned with fades into the background. This experience is the opposite of what I usually have with other approaches like tree-based info managers, where seeing the tree crammed with thousands of items tends to distract and stress me out.

* loose and structured at the same time - I like that I don’t really have to make any up-front decisions about my information. I can really just think and write naturally within CT and either apply zero structure (a note that isn’t even linked to from anything else) all the way up to very database-like structures with nested categories, properties, attributes, summaries, inline queries, etc. Over time, some areas gain more structure and I organically learn about the structure I need based on what I am trying to do with my info, at which point templates come into play.

* multiple views and organizational approaches - Obviously, linking is a big part of a personal wiki, and that’s certainly a primary means for applying order onto information in CT, but I like that there are other ways to organize and view info, with the navigator (mindmap-like), outliner, categories, automatic “meta” pages, etc. Also, I find that the GoTo feature (which is a quick, incremental filter of all topic names) is a great way to rapidly jump around to different topics when I’m working. I do more considered thinking and browsing by following links.

* scripting/plugins/etc. - I haven’t had the need to get into scripting CT yet, but as a programmer, I’m happy about the promise of being able to do so. If there is something CT doesn’t do with its considerable array of built-in functionality, there is probably a way to achieve it by writing your own helper programs.

So, I find it to be a very natural, writing-based way of working that’s flexible enough to grow organically without me having to spend a lot of time trying to wrestle my info into someone else’s preconception of how things should be organized. There are some specific tasks that other info managers do much better, but I’m enjoying the overall approach and the general “feel” of using CT.