Absent Hoisting or a Deeper Problem; A Question about Idea!

< Next Message | Back to archived message list | Previous Message >

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

Outliners.com Message ID: 4669

Posted by srdiamond15
2005-12-06 22:43:28

I’m not entirely sure that adding a hoist command to Ultra Recall would solve the problem of trees that are hard to navigate, since hoisting geared to focusing the user’s attention on a given branch and its subordinates not on reaching deeper levels of hierarchy. I’m sure the hoist command would help, but I’m not sure it’s the basic solution.

This is a problem that was predicted by the developer of a competing program, Idea!, who warned that bringing everything into the database could render it unmanageable. Features of Idea! are geared to avoiding the problem. First, records in the database are listed in a separate pane in Idea! If you have five records on average per branch, this reduces tree clutter by a factor of five. Clutter is further reduced by liberally attaching files to records. If for every branch you have an average of three attached files, this further reduces clutter by a factor of 3. A total of 1,500% reduction in branch nodes is not trivial.

But there’s a subtler issue that might be more significant. Idea!‘s design encourages a more a priori approach to structuring the tree. The result that a user is apt to use considerably more forethought in planning the structure. Ultra Recall, on the other hand, tends to give rise to the profligate creation of branches on an ad hoc basis.

This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Ultra Recall per se; more a possible limitation on its use. It may not be the ideal place to organize a large database. I contended months ago that Idea! was more suitable for very large databases. What I didn’t quite realize is how soon the Ultra Recall tree would become difficult to manage, even with my more modest data collecting needs.

So, I’m gradually brining my data into Idea!, while at the same time continuing to put it into Ultra Recall. I want to see how the approaches compare concretely. (If anyone knows how to do this expeditiously, I’d like to hear it. I’m just using Clipmate (which incidentally has a new major version).

But Idea! is a considerably harder application to use than Ultra Recall. Seldom do I find anything in Ultra Recall that I even must think about before knowing how to do it.

In Idea! I am unable to figure out how to attach documents other than one by one. There’s a basket that’s supposed to help, but it is populated only by three files. I don’t even know why those particular files are there. I’m almost certain I’m overlooking something. I’d appreciate someone’s instruction on how to make the attachment.

Stephen Diamond

Back to archived message list