Prompted by the recent discussion on ultrawide monitors, multiple monitors and/or multiple windows side-by-side on the same screen, I confirmed for myself that when working on most mentally demanding tasks, I tend to place any reference material to the left and do my actual work on the right.

In the physical world, this makes practical sense: I am right-handed, so objects on my right would probably interfere with what I am doing. But I tend to do the same on my main screen: e.g. for a translation, I will split the screen real estate into two windows and keep the original text on the left, while working on my editor on the right.

Looking at software, a similar trend seems to exist. Almost all two-pane outliners that I am aware of show the outline on the left, and the detail pane on the right. The one exception I know is Emeditor, where the outline is produced by a plug-in which can be hidden or shown on the far right, along with other tools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KmKjcTfzfc I imagine that in some programmes like UltraRecall whose pane positions are customisable, this 'inverse' setup can also be achieved; apparently Open Office can do it.

In Word as in many online tools, comments are entered on the right. This could well be a case of skeuomorphism, mimicking the way that most (right-handed) people will scribble their comments on the right margin of a document. Nevertheless it confirms the 'reference on the left, input to the right' approach. Not sure if there's a difference when writing in Right-to-Left languages.

I wonder if there be more to this, e.g. something to do with right- and left- brain processing? Am I missing something obvious?

The eye tracks from right to left. It is easier to keep reference materials on the left - the eyes slide from the reference to the writing space easily. I suspect this might be different for cultures that read right to left.IMO.

I think it's cultural. Western languages read from left to right.

I own (but only occasionally use) a Japanese ePub reader on my Mac called Murasaki. It has the sidebar on the right, and is actually a delight to use.

Pic: https://cl.ly/77a3b5c26173

Early versions of Mac OS X's Aqua UI (until 2004/5) supported a sidebar concept called, drawers, which popped outside the application window frame, usually on the right. (Can't remember if this was always the case for all apps, but I remember the drawer sometimes switching to the left in (some?) apps if the window was against the right side of the monitor.)

At the time, in addition to standard Mac apps like Mail, 3rd-party apps like Transmit, OmniWeb, Shiira and BBEdit adopted the drawers. There were a lot of complaints about the drawers, and I believe they were deprecated in mid-2005 with the advent of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, in favor of the now-standard left-oriented sidebar.

I have tried it both ways round and I always find I am more comfortable with the notes/text on the right and the tree/outline on the left. I don't know if this is a result of my culture or not.

I have at least two monitors on every system I work on and when I am working on my laptop at work the monitor on the right is lower resolution and not as good (fuzzy with washed out colours) and I had aranged things so that the floating window containing the notes/text was on the right in this monitor. So a while ago I thought I would try it the other way round to take advantage of the sharp high DPI screen of my laptop. I only worked with it like this for 20 minutes before switching back because it feels more natural for me to have the tree on the left and the text on the right. It shouldn't make that much of a difference but for me it does.

InfoQube has a very configurable interface. You can have the tree on the right, left or in a floating window in another monitor. The same with the text, you can have it right, left or floating. So I tried this configuration again after reading this post and for me it still feels wrong to have the text on the left and the tree on the right.

I am right handed by the way.

It seems most apps that have an “inspector” for adjusting settings in a document will place the inspector on the right of the screen. In several mind mapping apps, the Notes inspector and outline view is included in the inspector panel, and thus also on the right. XMind and iMindMap come to mind.

Paul J. Miller wrote:

I have tried it both ways round and I always find I am more comfortable
with the notes/text on the right and the tree/outline on the left. I
don't know if this is a result of my culture or not.

Maybe it's just because I'm used to seeing it that way !

Maybe if I persisted with the reversed setup I would get used to it.

Paul J. Miller wrote:

Paul J. Miller wrote:
I have tried it both ways round and I always find I am more comfortable
>with the notes/text on the right and the tree/outline on the left. I
>don't know if this is a result of my culture or not.
>

Maybe it's just because I'm used to seeing it that way !

Maybe if I persisted with the reversed setup I would get used to it.

I'm the same. Isn't it a cultural "accustomisation" in the Western world? From the early days of learning to read, my eyes and brain have become accustomed to scanning for sense from left to right, and, furthermore, from scanning from macro on the left to micro on the right. The indentation of indented lists works that way; even, for me, horizontal mind-maps look awkward if the "head-node" is on the right.

Hugh wrote:

I'm the same. Isn't it a cultural "accustomisation" in the Western
world? From the early days of learning to read, my eyes and brain have
become accustomed to scanning for sense from left to right, and,
furthermore, from scanning from macro on the left to micro on the right.
The indentation of indented lists works that way;

Indeed. My understanding is that two-pane outliners evolved from one-pane outliners, which themselves are an active version (collapse/expand) of indented lists, so the paradigm has been maintained.

even, for me, horizontal mind-maps look awkward if the "head-node" is on the right.

I believe that Tony Buzan's original concept of mind maps foresees their omnidirectional development in an effort to provide multiple perspectives of the central topic. While software implementations provide additional 'formats', these usually represent limitations of the original concept, e.g. 'affinity' (top down), left to right, 'funnel' (right to left). The latter was discussed sometime ago here https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6428

Paul Korm wrote:

It seems most apps that have an “inspector” for adjusting
settings in a document will place the inspector on the right of the
screen. In several mind mapping apps, the Notes inspector and outline
view is included in the inspector panel, and thus also on the right.
XMind and iMindMap come to mind.

This may be related to the inspector panel being added along with properties, notes, and similar secondary panels, which usually appear on the right. In MindGenius, where the Map Explorer has its own area, it appears on the left http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/51118/mindgenius-4-review

While I also tend to work "left to right", there are some applications, like My Life Organized, that have information panes on the right. Perhaps this is not inconsistent with the L to R philosophy, as it can "center" the main work area if there is also a pane to the left, but I sometimes find it awkward. And, there has been a big trend in web blog layouts (e.g. WordPress) to move the side pane from the left to the right. I tend to prefer a left pane for navigation, but it is starting to look a bit "old school" if you look at new designs.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

there are some applications,
like My Life Organized, that have information panes on the right.
Perhaps this is not inconsistent with the L to R philosophy, as it can
"center" the main work area if there is also a pane to the left, but I
sometimes find it awkward. And, there has been a big trend in web blog
layouts (e.g. WordPress) to move the side pane from the left to the
right.

People might not remember this, but starting in 1989 NeXT's OS had scrollbars on the left instead of the right, and there were flame wars in some online tech forums when Apple bought NeXT, with people debating whether Mac OSX should follow NeXT's example or not.

Ultimately it's a learned preference, like the preferred location of desktop icons.

satis wrote:

People might not remember this, but starting in 1989 NeXT's OS had
scrollbars on the left instead of the right, and there were flame wars
in some online tech forums when Apple bought NeXT, with people debating
whether Mac OSX should follow NeXT's example or not.

Ultimately it's a learned preference, like the preferred location of
desktop icons.

I'll say. My first machine was a 128K Mac in 1984. I switched to Windows in 1998, but have kept my menu bar at the top of my machine ever since. It drive our IT support people crazy when they have to remote in, but it is what I am used to.

--Ken

I'm thinking that some of us have waaay too much time on our hands

In such case, I can suggest a very nice and hospitable forum, found at www.outlinersoftware.com, where people discuss all aspects related to software tools for managing ideas, information, tasks and more. It is very amicable and civil, and one is bound to learn a useful thing or too. Of course, one may encounter the occasional ill-mannered judgemental statement, but it will be the exception and, in any case, one is nowhere safe from such situations.

Listerene wrote:

I'm thinking that some of us have waaay too much time on our hands