Namesakes in Brainstorm
Posted by pma
on 9/22/2005
pma
9/22/2005 5:33 am
Hi.
Lovely that outliners.com is up and running again! It's like a cozy corner in a crazy world.
I have problems seeing the wonders of namesakes in Brainstorm. I just don't get the point. If I make a new entry with the same name as an already existing entry somewhere else in the model, it will replicate the items included in the first entry.
Say, I already have a topic in the literature review part of my model, and then I create a topic with the same name in the discussion part, where I want to discuss the topic in the light of results from my study. However, when I "open" the newly created topic under the discussion, the items from the literature review pop up. If I started writing new items, it would all get messed up. This doesn't exactly support my thinking process. So I just disable the namesake by clicking the namesake icon.
I try to think about situations, where you want this behaviour, where namesakes will actually support your work. Can you help me? There must be some wisdom that I haven't been able to grasp. I would find it more logical if BS somehow just showed a link to the other namesakes, when it discovered them, but there must be a reason that it has been implemented this way. Do any of you use those namesakes?
Peter.
Lovely that outliners.com is up and running again! It's like a cozy corner in a crazy world.
I have problems seeing the wonders of namesakes in Brainstorm. I just don't get the point. If I make a new entry with the same name as an already existing entry somewhere else in the model, it will replicate the items included in the first entry.
Say, I already have a topic in the literature review part of my model, and then I create a topic with the same name in the discussion part, where I want to discuss the topic in the light of results from my study. However, when I "open" the newly created topic under the discussion, the items from the literature review pop up. If I started writing new items, it would all get messed up. This doesn't exactly support my thinking process. So I just disable the namesake by clicking the namesake icon.
I try to think about situations, where you want this behaviour, where namesakes will actually support your work. Can you help me? There must be some wisdom that I haven't been able to grasp. I would find it more logical if BS somehow just showed a link to the other namesakes, when it discovered them, but there must be a reason that it has been implemented this way. Do any of you use those namesakes?
Peter.
stephenz
9/22/2005 8:58 am
Peter,
I must confess that I don't make use of namesakes myself. However, I think there are times it could be useful. For instance, if you're working in a large model describing a complex project, you might have the name of a contact person in more than one location, and all the contact information would be available. Or, say, you've delegated several tasks to an individual, you could easily move through your model to note all the tasks that person is responsible for.
In another scenario, you're gathering research and structuring an article. You could create one section of your model where you store reference, listing the source title with all the citation information as subordinate. Then you could just type the source title into your model wherever you've cited it and you'd have access to the citation information quickly.
I'm sure there are dozens of other examples of how the namesaking could be useful, and won't be surprised to hear from other Brainstormers.
Steve Z.
I must confess that I don't make use of namesakes myself. However, I think there are times it could be useful. For instance, if you're working in a large model describing a complex project, you might have the name of a contact person in more than one location, and all the contact information would be available. Or, say, you've delegated several tasks to an individual, you could easily move through your model to note all the tasks that person is responsible for.
In another scenario, you're gathering research and structuring an article. You could create one section of your model where you store reference, listing the source title with all the citation information as subordinate. Then you could just type the source title into your model wherever you've cited it and you'd have access to the citation information quickly.
I'm sure there are dozens of other examples of how the namesaking could be useful, and won't be surprised to hear from other Brainstormers.
Steve Z.
sub
9/23/2005 3:16 pm
Peter
I think there are two main approaches to the usefulness of Namesakes. The first is that Namesakes are, for all practical purposes, what most other applications refer to as Clones; i.e. virtually identical entries that automatically reflect any change made to any one of them. The usefulness of clones has more or less to do with what Steve mentions, i.e. referencing information common to various areas of your database without fear of missing the latest updates. For example, in UltraRecall I keep cloned (Duplicate in UR terminology) contact details of relevant people in my respective project folders in addition to my main contact folder.
The second is that, on top of "classic" clone functionality, Brainstorm automatically recognises previously entered identical items. This is inline with Brainstorm's integrated and seamless approach, i.e. in a classic database you'd have to interrupt your data entry to search for previously entered items and then create links to those.
I personally make regular use of Namesakes, though unfortunately their automatic recognition in Greek is still case-sensitive.
For example, when I write marketing copy, I often make copies of full texts, turn Namesakes Off, edit, then turn Namesakes On again to compare the various versions.
When organising information, if I come across something that would fit in to a previous topic, I don't even need to search for it; I just type the topic name, promote it and copy the information below previous entries.
When I want to "treat the same topic under different light" I simply keep the information at the same level as the topic title, i.e. not as subsidiary to it. Then I can simply navigate between the various instances to compare notes.
Last but not least, Namesakes fit in nicely with Brainstorm's free Diary Generator. My "journal" is a thematically organised text but it includes a diary structure accessible from the first page. Before I start writing in any theme I press Shift+Ctrl+L to enter the date; then the entries can be viewed in chronological order by accessing them from the diary.
alx
I think there are two main approaches to the usefulness of Namesakes. The first is that Namesakes are, for all practical purposes, what most other applications refer to as Clones; i.e. virtually identical entries that automatically reflect any change made to any one of them. The usefulness of clones has more or less to do with what Steve mentions, i.e. referencing information common to various areas of your database without fear of missing the latest updates. For example, in UltraRecall I keep cloned (Duplicate in UR terminology) contact details of relevant people in my respective project folders in addition to my main contact folder.
The second is that, on top of "classic" clone functionality, Brainstorm automatically recognises previously entered identical items. This is inline with Brainstorm's integrated and seamless approach, i.e. in a classic database you'd have to interrupt your data entry to search for previously entered items and then create links to those.
I personally make regular use of Namesakes, though unfortunately their automatic recognition in Greek is still case-sensitive.
For example, when I write marketing copy, I often make copies of full texts, turn Namesakes Off, edit, then turn Namesakes On again to compare the various versions.
When organising information, if I come across something that would fit in to a previous topic, I don't even need to search for it; I just type the topic name, promote it and copy the information below previous entries.
When I want to "treat the same topic under different light" I simply keep the information at the same level as the topic title, i.e. not as subsidiary to it. Then I can simply navigate between the various instances to compare notes.
Last but not least, Namesakes fit in nicely with Brainstorm's free Diary Generator. My "journal" is a thematically organised text but it includes a diary structure accessible from the first page. Before I start writing in any theme I press Shift+Ctrl+L to enter the date; then the entries can be viewed in chronological order by accessing them from the diary.
alx