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Core distinguishing features of two-pane PIMs
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Dec 9, 2012 at 08:20 PM
Foolness wrote:
>Before certain new outlining features had to be introduced, many old advanced outliners had to die away
I don’t know whether this was a determinist evolutionary issue (“had to”), but I tend to agree in retrospect. In addition, some features imply contrasting paradigms in organising information. Surfulater provides both clones of items in its folder tree (same item in more than one folders) and a tag tree for items. Either can be used for non-exclusive categorisation. From discussions in the Surfulater blog and forum, my impression is that just about nobody uses both features. Possibly, programs that only use one or the other method may be easier to understand by prospective buyers.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Dec 10, 2012 at 12:14 AM
I’m not sure how many “old advanced outliners had to die away,” although a few certainly have.
Tags and cloning co-exist in MyInfo and UltraRecall, although the tag tree in Surfulater is unique.
It seems there’s a resurgence in new two-pane outliners coming to market, yet I am impressed not by what they have so much as by what they don’t have - features which to me seem essential if the developers’ intent is to information management.
I am thinking of a hoist capability, cloning, tags, metadata columns.
We’ve had years of outliners which only have one or two - or none - of those features. I’d have thought anyone coming to market now would see the logic of having all of those features as a minimum.
Given the way information workers/writers do what they do, it amazes me very few developers take seriously the need to have more than one open window - Evernote, WhizFolders, and MyInfo all have this feature, although in the current version of MI the window(s) which are additional to the main open window are not editable; Petko, the developer plans to make all windows editable in the next major version.
The late lamented ADM in retrospect was ahead of its time - it had all of the features. Part of the reason was that the developer had seriouus, day-to-day interaction with users who were clear as to what was needed. Unfortunately, the developer became enamored with the Chinese authoritarian approach to doing things - he lived in China at the time - and began alienating a very loyal crew of beta testers. That was the end for ADM.
Anyhow, I ramble.
Daly
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
Foolness wrote:
>>Before certain new outlining features had to be introduced, many old
>advanced outliners had to die away
>
>I don’t know whether this was a determinist evolutionary issue (“had
>to”), but I tend to agree in retrospect. In addition, some features
>imply contrasting paradigms in organising information. Surfulater
>provides both clones of items in its folder tree (same item in more than
>one folders) and a tag tree for items. Either can be used for
>non-exclusive categorisation. From discussions in the Surfulater blog
>and forum, my impression is that just about nobody uses both features.
>Possibly, programs that only use one or the other method may be easier
>to understand by prospective buyers.
>
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 10, 2012 at 04:18 PM
Foolness wrote:
Dr Andus wrote:
>So my question is: what are the main categories (on the basis of core
>>distinguishing features) of two-pane PIMs?
>
>MDI vs. Pane (example split text vs. static sidebar)
>
>Bookmarks and tagging features
>
>Online sync
>
>Portability
>
>Pane resize feature
>
>Speed
>
>Docks
>
>Plugins
Thanks, good additions to the criteria list.
>Those are the main features but like most things, they tend to be
>redundant. Useful only for researchers but outliners are more personal
>than wikis. It’s the “special exemptions” that separates one from the
>other. Not the robustness or static purpose.
Good point - but probably these special distinctions are the ones that make a two-pane outliner/PIM particularly suitable for one main purpose. Unfortunately it’s really difficult to identify these special distinguishing features, as they are usually buried in a long list of commonly shared features.
I don’t have a problem with the examples you picked because those are fairly unique tools. The kind of two-pane outliners/PIM that I had in mind were the likes of AllMyNotes Organizer, Aml Pages, AM-Notebook, AnyNotes etc., etc., where I just can’t tell them apart without some substantial evaluation. However, there are too many of these out there, hence my wish for an evaluative matrix for them…
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 10, 2012 at 07:28 PM
I see that the Donation Coder folks started a thread on trying to make sense of the note-taking software market 6 years ago, and the thread is still going strong… Although my question was less ambitious: I was only wondering about 2-pane outliners/PIM (given that wikis have been sorted and one-pane outliners are few).
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2362.0
Posted by Cassius
Dec 11, 2012 at 12:47 AM
I have both myBase and Surfulater. I prefer myBase. Perhaps it’s because I’ve used my Base for years, but it seems to me to have a friendlier interface for the basic stuff: capturing Web pages and writing rtf. Some of the more advanced features require a bit of learning.