Re: Is outlining the best free form database organization?

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 1907

Posted by daly_de_gagne
2004-05-15 04:52:30

Some thoughts on this discussion.

Since last fall I have primarily used for my info needs two programs—ADM 3 in Beta and Ariadne in its latest Beta form. Both programs are outline based, Ariadne’s looking more like Info Select.

But, unlike IS, both ADM and Ariadne provide keywords. ADM’s execution of keywords is more sophisticated, and when ADM 3 goes public, will I predict, become one of its most-used features. Someone noted InControl: when I moved to PCs from the Mac World 18 months ago, I looked hard for a program like InControl that combined columns and outline. Not until ADM began to develop version 3 did I find columns (except for ECCO, which didn’t meet other needs of mine); ADM has brought the columns notion a long way in a short time and while users will ask for refinements, I think the overall concept will go over well when the product goes public.

For those who haven’t used keywords the concept may not sound all that useful. But believe me, it is one good way of getting beyond what someone else has mentioned as the problem of only being able to assign location to a piece of info in an outline.

Re ADM’s interface: I find it is unique, different, and aesthetically pleasing. I like the fact it doesn’t look like every other Windows program.

As ADM’s metadata capabilities develop I probably will use it more and more, though I very much like Ariadne. Ariadne allows you to place a comment with each note or other type of entry in the outline, and that is a very handy feature. I find Ariadne does the core outline piece of IS better than IS does it. Ariadne also has a calendar feature that I don’t use, but have tested and which seems OK.

Kudos to the independent software makers who work so hard with both ADM and Ariadne.

Daly

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