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: 2363

Posted by srdiamond15
2004-12-27 23:47:16

I never doubted that Grandview is powerful. A program that combines outlining and database functions and actually accomplishes both has to be very powerful. I think these programs suffer in their ergonomics, not their power.

As to ergonomics, I think you have verified that Grandview requires a large investment of effort. I’m not sure a program that has to be learned ground up can ever be ergonomic. Anything requiring a lot of learning also requires a lot of practice, and where periods of disuse occur, there will be forgetting. The program has to get in the way of thought, if effortlessly mirroring thought is the objective of the pure outliner, something that BrainStorm does expertly and NoteMap very competently.

A professional who has to respond to impining information moment to moment doesn’t need a highly ergonomic program, because the world’s demands render negligible the effect of a slightly greater program facility. Catching thoughts is a different matter. That you don’t use an outliner for brainstorming means either that your memory is a lot better than average or that you haven’t experienced the advantages of a really ergonomic outliner like BrainStorm. Probably the former, since NoteMap has very good ergonomics. In comparing Grandview on ergonomics, the limited undo functionality has greater weight than macros, because macros are something you have to remember the keys to perform. Their absence in a pure outliner isn’t that hard to justify.

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