Re: Is InfoHandler an outliner (was Re: An Addi....)

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 2484

Posted by srdiamond15
2005-01-08 20:51:56

As evidence of the distinctness of these two functions I would present BrainStorm, which so many of us use, but few of us (any of us?) use for actual data management.—Steve Zeoli

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I think the function of outlining as such in information management programs and in outliners per se is in essence the same or at least similar: classifying, reclassifying, and seeing connections. Not all information management programs use outlining, but those that do necessarily use it for these purposes. Outlining, however, doesn’t play the same central role in information management programs as pure outliners. A good information management program must combine a number of small functions. It must get clippings, divide and combine notes, maybe format text, have a good search tool, be able to export combinations of notes, and cross-classify rather than merely classify data. A pure outliner can be almost purely devoted to outlining.

But I take you and Jack to be saying that outlining itself has a different function in the two kinds of applications. That I don’t see. The outliner component can be substantially evaluated by the same criteria in both programs, which I take it is what make GrandView possible. I mean, it didn’t have two different outliners, did it? But since in information management programs, the outliner (as a component) is balanced in importance by a larger weight for non-outlining functionality, the outliner will tend to be inferior to the outliner in dedicated outlining programs. Not just different, because it serves a different purpose, but inferior because ergonomics plays a smaller role in classifying data already at hand than generating one’s own. Information managers don’t face the problem of keeping up with the speed of thought.

Why isn’t BrainStorm used more widely for information management? Not because its outlining functionality wouldn’t be useful if less important for that purpose, in my opinion, but because it lacks one almost essential feature for information management programs, the ability to format a distinction between heading and text. If it had that (and maybe general rich text capability too), I would certainly try it for information management and it might even be my choice.

When I used a Mac with a pre-OS X system, I did my information management in More 3.1, a pure outliner with good text capability and a very clear distinction between text and headings. It was NOT a two-pane outliner. The two-pane format might appeal to numerous people because it carries on its face the text-heading demarcation. But it isn’t that the two-pane outliner is better, more adapted, to information management. I think it is probably an inferior solution for both, but the drawbacks are felt less keenly for information management.

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