Forum Posts Feed
EccoPro: Why has nobody developed a clone so far?
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Pages: < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 > Last ›
Posted by Wes Perdue
Aug 29, 2007 at 12:39 AM
Ken wrote:
>
>sracer wrote:
>>
>>My definition
>>of the HG of outliners is nearly identical to
>yours:
>>
>>1. Simply be an outliner (w/word
>>processing engine)...single pane, no
>contact management, no calendaring.
>>2.
>>Intuitively create/recognize outline
>structure based on context (think
>>indentation).
>>3. Ability to “fold”
>(“hide”/“collapse”) context subtrees.
>>4.
>>Ability to easily
>move/demote/promote subtrees.
>>5. Support “tagging/titles” of
>>outline
>entries and optionally hide/display those tags.
>>
>>The idea here is that an
>
>>outline is the “skeleton” of a document and that once the meat is on the bones, the
>
>>skeleton is still there, but no longer visible.
>
>This sounds a bit like MyInfo.
Except MyInfo is a two-pane outliner: it doesn’t comply with rule 1.
Posted by sracer
Aug 29, 2007 at 02:03 AM
Wes Perdue wrote:
>Except MyInfo is a two-pane
>outliner: it doesn’t comply with rule 1.
Exactly. I already use KeyNote for data organizing and appears to hold its own against apps like MyInfo. I don’t even know if it is fair to call a 2 or 3 pane application an outliner.
KeyNote does a great job of managing and organizing pieces of information in a tree-like structure. But there are some times when data is more of a network/web than a hierarchy. For those instances, I’ve been getting into WikidPad… an offline wiki. For example, I’m compiling stories from my childhood for my kids and it is great to have data automatically linked from various places. So it doesn’t matter what path the reader takes, whenever they run across a reference to “Uncle Joe”, clicking on that link will take them to the same information.
But for outlining in the traditional sense, I really think that single pane is it. I find that having more than a single pane visually and mentally breaks the document up too much.
Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Aug 29, 2007 at 03:23 AM
>But for outlining in the traditional sense, I really think that single pane
>is it. I find that having more than a single pane visually and mentally
>breaks the document up too much.
The “correct” answer was ndx Cards.
Holy Grail: 2. The object of prolonged endeavor. (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition.)
A Holy Grail Outliner by my meaning is not a user’s opinion about the ideal outliner but the outliners that have been products of a particular vision of an outlining Holy Grail. It is a noteworthy vision because it animated the most popular and competent outliners. This particular Holy Grail is the unification of information management and information manipulation. The thinking goes like this.
There’s only so much you can do with an outliner; similarly with a database. But what if you could combine the two. But if you try to have a convenient information manager, you seem always to end up with a clunky outliner. Vice versa, too. But what if you could get a really great outliner somehow paired with an information manager? Some say GrandView succeeded.
A single pane outliner is in general sine qua non, but I make the exception for ADM. It beefed up the manipulative capabilities of the outlining pane so that it could serve as a single pane outliner, a writer’s outliner, if you could manage to be satisfied with ADM’s printed output.
As a poster pointed out, I erred in saying Ecco lacked import. As it now looks to me, Ecco succesfully appealed mostly to the pack rats. The absent feature was export.
Posted by sracer
Aug 29, 2007 at 04:00 AM
Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>>But for outlining in the traditional sense, I really think that single pane
>>is it. I
>find that having more than a single pane visually and mentally
>>breaks the document
>up too much.
>
>The “correct” answer was ndx Cards.
>
>Holy Grail: 2. The object of
>prolonged endeavor. (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition.)
>
>A Holy
>Grail Outliner by my meaning is not a user’s opinion about the ideal outliner but the
>outliners that have been products of a particular vision of an outlining Holy Grail.
>It is a noteworthy vision because it animated the most popular and competent
>outliners. This particular Holy Grail is the unification of information management
>and information manipulation. The thinking goes like this.
>
>There’s only so much
>you can do with an outliner; similarly with a database. But what if you could combine
>the two. But if you try to have a convenient information manager, you seem always to end
>up with a clunky outliner. Vice versa, too. But what if you could get a really great
>outliner somehow paired with an information manager? Some say GrandView succeeded.
It seems to me that you have an expanded/different definition of “outline”. (That isn’t a bad thing, but we’re obviously talking about two different animals here) I’m thinking of outline in a more traditional sense… the means to an end. There are plenty of info organizers that use a tree/outline metaphor to manage data.
But where are the true outliners? I haven’t seen one since the old PC-DOS days. :(
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 29, 2007 at 01:21 PM
sracer wrote:
>The idea here is that an
>outline is the “skeleton” of a document and that once the meat is on the bones, the
>skeleton is still there, but no longer visible.
I agree completely with this assessment. This is what made GrandView unique in my experience. The content of each heading could be composed in a dedicated word processing window, then when you returned to the outline, you could turn the content off and on, so you could view your entire work either in its “skeletal” outline or in its entirety with the content visible, all in one flowing document. This kind of holistic approach is essential in clear writing, in my opinion.
I also agree with your comment that two- and three-pane PIMs are not strictly speaking outliners, but free-form databases that use an outline as a mechanism for organizing that information.
This is a great thread.
Steve Z.