Re: MyInfo 3, Jot+, etc., and the vital need for calendars

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 2361

Posted by srdiamond15
2004-12-27 20:23:08

Let’s look at the argument about the keyboard and the mouse. The natural extension of my point to that issue would be not that it is wrong to have two ways to do the same thing; I agree, that is a good thing. What is bad is that the two ways divide rather than overlap functions. It would be a bad thing to move the cursor with the mouse and not be able to use the keyboard to accomplish the same. Why? For one thing, if you are already doing something on the keyboard, you might want to remain there. Dividing functions that are naturally integrated interferes with the accessibility of the computer’s functionality from either entry point.

My point about outlining and key words is also about dividing functionality. I would have no objection to different routes to assigning key words or two routes to putting something in an outline structure—however you prefer to characterize it, since the result is the same—but then I want to be able to do _each_ *either* way. So when I set up a “key word,” I would then want that word to appear in the outline structure, with the items assigned subordinated.And any outlining assignment should augment my list of key words. That would be a good thing, but I’m not sure it’s important enough to be worth the resources, since outline structure with drag and drop is probably so far superior both in precision and ergonomics. But this isn’t my present poin. And I could easily go for “key words,” if they were implemented so as not to divide functionality, like having the mouse only do one thing and the keyboard something else.

But with key words the way they exist in ADM, the user is worse served than if key words were simply not available. Or perhaps for some users its the other way around. They would be better served limiting themselves to the keywords, without outlining, because by using both they are limiting the integrated functionality of both.

(It occurs to me that if these two groups of users exist, there is justification for two approaches, but the developer then should warn against using both. But I guess I really think the second group, the one better served by flat key words, doesn’t actually exist, not among users of a complicated product built on outlining.

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