Software that's enjoyable ... software that's a drudgery

Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 5, 2015 at 10:05 AM

Ah, I have some cunning ideas for how this could become a tool, but it’s a huge undertaking. The whole UX has been revolutionised by iOS in particular, which is how I think one could create such an app, but it involves quite a lot of lateral thinking. Sliding windows, cross-linking windows (a la Gingko) – that would all be part of it, I think. I’ve produced a number of concepts, but none of them has quite ‘hit the spot’. Ironically it’s some of the most boring software on the planet that probably shows the way forward (computer-assisted translation [CAT] tools). Alas, most of the major CAT tools are very engineer-driven and haven’t worked out just how important the UX is, yet.

As for DEVONthink – it’s the ability of the latter to open multiple windows onto the same database I’m referring to, I suppose. It’s a very useful (but by no means exclusive) feature, which many information managers don’t share (I’m looking at you, OneNote). As I experiment with DEVONthink, I find myself using multiple windows more frequently. On the other hand, the editor is just so ghastly and old-fashioned!

Paul Korm wrote:
I like Mr. Picky’s, er, Bill’s ideas. Not sure how that gets translated
>into an actual tool—or maybe it’s a workflow involving multiple
>tools. I am constantly juggling 3 or four sources at a time for writing
>new drafts or revising old drafts. I work mainly on a 13” laptop—
>which I think is an important factor in Bill’s vision since real estate
>matters a lot to how workable a “comparative document” environment can
>be. I think Bill is suggesting something more than comparing documents
>in Word, or more than tools such as Beyond Compare or Document Compare.
>I use DEVONthink all day long, but I would have never thought of it as a
>“comparative document” tool in any respect.
> >Would love to hear more of the vision!