Mind versus tree navigation; html versus rtf editing

Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Mar 12, 2007 at 08:43 PM

Graham Rhind wrote:
>Two threads in one ....
> >I was playing around with I-Navigation today (http://www.exswap.com/ - looks
>good on the site but was a disappointment to me when I tried it), when it
>struck me that the outliners with all the power (ADM, Whizfolders, Surfulator,
>Zoot) and many others all have tree based navigation systems. Programs with
>sophisticated mind-like interfaces have weak data storage and management
>capabilities.
A strong and interesting claim embedded in this message, if I’m reading correctly, is that mind-map navigation is more sophisticated than tree-based navigation. Which is to say, I suppose, that tree-based navigation is archaic. Perhaps Personal Brain 4 will tell.

Personal Brain, which I have not yet tried, aside—I think if I wanted to build a pim with mind navigation, I would look to Mind Manager, plus investigate the applicable third-party add-ons, based on which a veritable Mind Mgr subculture seems to be developing.

Tree-based and mind-based navigation isn’t an exhaustive catalog. Don’t forget liner, time-based navigation, i.e. Evernote. If your purpose is to locate notes, Evernote’s insight is significant. You should look to cues in episodic rather than semantic memory, because your acts of labeling and classifying are after all acts and will be stored as such. If you’re like me, you’ve avoided Evernote mostly out of habit and inertia.