Robert Caro's outliner

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 15, 2012 at 08:39 PM

Gary Carson wrote:
>As for this corkboard outlining method, I don’t
>think it can ever be replicated on a computer. Even the biggest flat-panel monitors
>are too small.

Even if you have a massive cork board in your room, there is a limit to the amount of information you can take in at any one time. The cork board just allows you a different way of navigating through your notes (draft, outline), which is basically a whole body physical movement. Considering the amazing resolution that a small iPod Touch can have these days, I can imagine that a 22in screen could display 8 pages in two rows and also make it easy to scroll sideways or up to display more pages and rows. It might be necessary to click on a document to zoom in and out but I think at least partially the experience could be emulated. Basically instead of physically moving your body in front of your cork board, you are moving the cork board horizontally and vertically across your screen, using a mouse.

I don’t know if there is any software that can do that. The problem with software in general is that they don’t pin information into a physical space, such as a real cork board does. As a result, for some people (like me) it’s more difficult to visualise and remember where things are within an electronic document (as opposed to a real cork board, where you can remember that your introduction for instance is in the top left corner, and that a particular argument starts at the bottom of the second row). I wish there were software that could replicate a cork board by fixing pages on a physical space, so instead of scrolling through a document (like in MS Word) what you are doing is moving the cork board around on which pages have a fixed place.