ConnectedText; any case studies?

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 21, 2012 at 04:03 PM

Dr Andus wrote:
>Then came the next phase, which meant actually starting the work in CT, without
>spending too much time reading the Help file. And I’m progressing step-by-step,
>looking up the Help file or the CT forum or actually asking for help as and when I need it.
>And so learning about CT has been incremental and totally in parallel with inventing
>my own version of it (i.e. my own desktop layout, arrangement of tools, creating
>logical relationships between documents (topics) and categories etc.). So I
>recommend 1) finding a problem you need to solve (a writing or organisational
>problem), 2) get stuck into CT, and 3) learn about the features as you go along and ask
>for help when needed.

Daly, I agree with Dr Andus’s approach for learning or growing into CT—especially number 1. If you have an idea of where you want to get to, that does probably make it easier.

But there is also the approach of just starting out thinking of CT as a collection of note cards. Create notes as needed and don’t worry about the wiki part at first. You can open and dock the Topics list, which gives you a flat index of all your topics. Now you’ve got what is a pretty conventional note manager with editor and index of topics. Also, the search functions are pretty robust, so I don’t think you’ll be in any danger of not being able to get to your information. You can then just slowly teach yourself some of the features of CT, making your database more sophisticated as you go along. You can also use the Auto Link feature, which sniffs out phrases that match Topic titles and creates links for you.

Steve Z.