ndxCards v. 1.92 Re: Lessons from the World of Clip Managers

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 2715

Posted by srdiamond15
2005-02-12 15:34:55

The advance from version 1.91 of ndxCards to 1.92 was far from being the trivial bug fix that the numbers suggest. Steve Zeoli was correct in suggesting that ndxCards now implements the approach that I suggest as analogous to what the leading clip managers do.

ndxCards now has a reasonably powerful outliner. For my purposes, an outliner counts as reasonably powerful if it has the core outliner features. Mark and gather or its equivalent is the usual make or break feature. ndxCards implements this with discontiguous selection of topics.

Cloning is not a pre-requisite for a “reasonably powerful outliner,” but it is a pre-requisite for the outlining functionality in a fully modern hierarchical database. ndxCards also has cloning. Notes are written on cards, and the same card can be dropped to multiple places in the outline.

In addition ndxCards incorporates a feature that I have prognosticated should be an important part of the feature of computerized outlining, but had not to my knowledge been implement by other products: different substantive organization schemes (as opposed to merely different displays) of the same data as “views.” An outliner or outliner-based data should have the capability to display alternative systems of organizing the same data, in my opinion, to expedite comparing organizing approaches, to compare different theories that imply different ways of organizing the information, or different perspectives. ndxCards implements a feature compatible with this use in its ‘Projects,’ different outlines applying to the same database, which are in the same file for easy backup.

Getting back to Steve Zeoli’s on-the-mark comment, ndxCards has two distinct interfaces, one for writing cards and performing data base functions like creating key words and finding information based on various criteria and another for creating Projects that take the form of outlines. The first mode is oriented around the card; the second around the outline, into which you can type headings or drag cards from a list.

I think that IMPLEMENTING THIS APPROACH PROVIDES A BASIS FOR TRULY UNITING OUTLINING AND DATABASE MANAGEMENT. Consider ADM, in part response to Jan’s request. ADM’s weakness comes from a basic design defect present from its start: it has the form of a dual-pane hierarchical database, with body text entered in a separate text card (now called a ‘page’) on the top or right. As Steve Zeoli has also pointed out in other threads, a separate text card takes the user’s focus off the outline and breaks the flow of outlining by making the user hop to another place to enter text.

The outliner in ndxCards is single-pane. That is, text is inline. This is the immediate benefit accruing to ndxCards, because of its separation of outlining and data base modes. Text that is entered inline within the outliner becomes a card. Many automatic features, such as automated completion of keywords and subjects and the option of automatically replacing a saved card with a fresh one to enter more information, speed up entry of data in cards.

I had previously criticized ndxCards for mixing metaphors by including outlining and key words as separate methods of organizing, when keywords should behave in the same manner as outliner topics. Because of ndxCards’ separate outliner and database modes, I’m uncertain whether this criticism is just. Keywords are a fast, on-the-fly means of finding notes, speeded up by automated means. Rather than being an alternative to the outline, it might be viewed as a speedy, ergonomic way to classify data minimally without breaking the stream of thought in taking notes.

There is one glaring absence in ndxCards that some will miss. It has no conventional find command. You can find information with Boolean combinations of designated keywords, and you can combine keywords with other criteria, such as the subject and data of creation. But you can’t search for just any combination of words. Whether this matters may depend on the capabilities of the new spate of free find utilities capable of finding anything on a disk from the desktop.

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