Outlining and concept maps (Scapple, TheBrain, ConnectedText...)

Posted by 22111
Nov 11, 2013 at 10:21 AM

Scapple

“The export files don’t seem to preserve any kind of hierarchy. I realize that may be by design”

No import from your outliner, and no export to your outliner but in a flat list if I understand this “design” well - this is unacceptable.

Let’s remember this is brand-new software, but if they insist on not developing the according functionality soon, forget about this program.

General Considerations

Of course, for such a concept map, a real tree structure is not possible, but that is no reason to not try to preserve any structure to begin with.

Export: By frequency of interlinks, the program could create groups, called Group 1, Group 2, etc., with the items as children (siblings, from their point of view). Then, by option, it would be possible to automatically add several types of comments like “(also in Group 2)” and “(cf. x)”, “(but y)”, etc., these by checking the types of connections (alternatives, objections, difficulties, possible solutions, details…).

Then, it should be possible to NAME those groups, even before export, in order to facilitate their clarity, especially for such automatic comments.

From the screen, the groups could be retrieved beginning from top left over top right, then bottom left and bottom right, if that is sensible, or, automatically, in three ranges, middle left, middle right in-between those, or just “middle”, or top left, top middle, top right; middle, bottom left, bottom right, i.e. the program should check for groups, by frequency of interlinks, and then decide - some decisions might be erroneous, but most will be helpful.

Also, directed links should be checked, anything is good that will break up all-flat lists, and multiple “clones” creation, with the correct automatic comments, should be another target, which means, where, by multiple vectors, within the concept map cloning is NOT necessary by implicit, one item being a “factor”/“element” in multiple contexts, the export should create multiple “subtrees” instead, with lush “cloning” - if you want this or not, in any case, could be decided in common by yourself and the program:

“Export” would present another “view” first where the program would present “things it will do” by coloring/bolding and other visual indicators, and in which view you could also color/bold or de-color/de-bold the selections the program will have made for you: All this will greatly reduce manual touching up of the export result in your outliner then.

Import should of course create sub-webs, children/siblings/dotted lists, within the space of that virtual sheet of paper (= the screen deployment of all imported elements), in “groups”, from top left to bottom right again, and here again, the program should decide for itself if it’s reasonable to create those groups in 2 or 3 ranges, or even 4 (of course, it’s always sensible to not create monster maps, and from there at least, splitting up the too big a map into several reasonably-sized ones should be possible).

On import, too, there should be options, in order for your deciding upon directed vectors, bidirectional links, just grouping, etc.

Also, instead of fetching all the text, or none, there should be the possibility to just fetch its first paragraph.

I think that for planning/“thinking” about things, a concept map is invaluable, but then, for “execution”, with all the “material” that such “putting into practice” involves, an outliner structure is better, so the export function of a concept mapper should be quite elaborate, whilst the import function could be quite rudimentary, but then, it’s an iterative process, so even import should not be too primitive, and of course it would be ideal to have some real “synching”, i.e. program functionality within the concept mapper, on import _to an existing map_ for checking, what’s new, what has been changed within the outliner - to some degree at least. This means you would not have to “rearrange it all”, for every new “import”, but you would have a secondary “import” function, which tries to preserve your existing map, just updating it a little bit - it goes without saying that this would be tremendously helpful.

ConnectedText?!

All this makes me wonder if the in-built mapping functionality (which avoids all these extreme export/import/synchronization problems between mapping and outlining in separate programs) does “replace” such a “concept mapper” to some degree, and if yes, to what extent: Known problems, known weaknesses, but also known strenghts?

It’s interesting there has been written so much about CT, from Kühn et al., but this mapping functionality of that program is not that much mentioned, let alone detailed, so some insight here from real users would be really helpful: It could be that from this point of view, CT might be the ideal program.

TheBrain

Also, it would be of interest to know what TB “does” with interconnections and such when it builds up its “outlined” structure. As far as I “know them” (but I’m just guessing here), they just retrieve the main tree and cut off all these additional linking elements? Or do they do something really smart there?