Re: An Addition to the List

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 2449

Posted by daly_de_gagne
2005-01-05 16:38:52

SD: Why don’t you describe the procedure for moving categories from any place in the hierarchy of categories to any other, when they are selected in any combination.

In IH one selects the menu option to move categories in a group to any other group, The option provides a list of the categories. One highlight a single category or, by holding the control key, any combination of categories, and then drags then to the name of the desired group, which is shown in an adjacent box.

SD: Because such a capability would make it a capable outliner of categories, regardless of whether you want to call them key words or an outline.

Going by your own fairly stringent definition of what is an outliner and what is not, I believe it would be a misnomer to call IH an outliner of categories, although you can select a tree view of existing categories and groups.

SD: MyInfo3 has the equivalent of a keyword system in its system of cloning.

What your MyInfo3 has is essentially a work-around that’s necessary precisely because it does not have a keyword system. You have spoken about ergonomics. There is nothing ergonomic about trying to use a clone feature to develop a keyword capability that is lacking.

SD: There’s no way to even address this issue intelligibly without first saying what you take the difference in function between a tree a a hierarchical system of keywords.

I think I may have contributed to confusion here by saying in a post that IH has a hierarchial keyword system. I think I was mistaken; a hierarchial keword system would be one based on an outline.

SD: What you do say about the difference in function between keywords and a tree outline is limited to describing key words as “based on a list or lists.” But that does nothing to distinguish organization by outline or by keywords, because oun outline, of course, is a list.

IH’s keywords are based on lists developed by the user and clustered under specific groups. My point is that there are outline programs that allow you to develop keywords in the outline, usually as some sort of a work-around, such as you have with MyInfo. Some programs, including those with an outline capability let you set up a nonhierarchial, flat list of keywords, which can be displayed outline-style with the items for which each keyword has been chosen under the appropriate keywords. Scholar’s Aid does that. IH is not an outliner per se, but does provide an outline view of groups, categories and infoitems.

Where you talk about organization by outline or keywords, I think the point is that we are discussing how keywords are formulated—whether in a hierarchial outline (whether it is a work-around or not), or by a single flat list (ADM), or a series of grouped lists (as with IH).

Re marking and gathering: IH does what I said it does. What I am not sure of is whether that qualifies as marking and gathering in the sense the term has been used in outliners, such as Grandview. I believe in Grandview you could mark and gather from anywhere within the outline. IH limits you to selecting categories from one group at a time for movement to another group.

Daly

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