Outliner for nonfiction book

Posted by washere
Nov 5, 2018 at 10:00 PM

Franz Grieser wrote:
washere wrote:
> >>If half the people here don’t see the need for double digit outliner
>>view levels, can we blame the LibreOffice devs (who left OpenOffice
>>after the takeover) when they say we’re not going to waste time
>building
>>it, who cares about outliner view or deep heading outlining?
> >Maybe half the people here do not need 10 or more heading levels. But
>most (all?) posters here would agree that a decent word processor needs
>a decent outlining mode/view.
>I don’t see why the LibreOffice developers refuse to integrate Organon
>or something comparable in the LO package.
> >Unfortunately, there are a lot of developers of word processers who do
>not see a need for outlining - Textmaker (part of the German Softmaker
>Office) is one example.

Well that is my point. 3 Different ontologies here:
___________________________________________________________

1) Real(ity) Politik Actual Contenders:

SoftMaker: small comoany, relative to big software corps, trying to make money and survive. They are not going to do it, why? See LO, last line below.

Microsoft: They are not going to do a proper Outline View, why? Because they are so huge they do not listen, it is a giant Leviathan. Took hundreds of millions for years to make them bring back start button and give up making windows (8) into a tablet touch screen disaster. Feedback on Outline View has been asking for years to make it comprehensive for academics/authors, no cigar. Waste of time to ask them.

OppenOffice: Since taken over? Forget about it.

LibreOffice: Best bet but they are saying a comprehensive “proper” Outline View will not be made. And they don’t see a point in doing a mini-me crippled version.

Why not doa full featured awesome Outline View?
i) It takes a lot of man hours to To make a proper and deep reaching Outline View which goes beyond MS Word crippled version
ii) It will have to take into account being coded into ALL MODULES of writer and other apps modules. It is a meta feature which would have i/o, features AND CONTROL control over all other modules in their suite of apps within LO. This means even more hours and involves all their teams.

Considering their huge needs for constant debugging, upgrades, new flashier features which require less work, etc and their limited resources and devs, that is why they are saying for years they are not going to do it.
LO is a free and open source project. I am sure if someone gives them a million dollars to do a proper full featured deep Outline View, they will find the devs and time to do it.

___________________________________________________________

2) What would a Proper Deep Outline View on a heavy weight word processor mean?
If such a beast came into being, it would show MS Word Outline View (OV) and Scrivener etc. look like a joke.
Because it would plug into the most used app category in the history of mankind: Word Processors.
It is like what we were taught in the Uni about future multimedia taking over the world, and most laughed. It only took Tim Berners-Lee little web browser to hyper link simple text and graphics and the http protocol being added to ftp, email etc. Here we are. Granted it will not be nowhere near as big in impact, but once doen for academics, report writers, archivers, Gov bodies, authors etc, it will be a mini big bang.
Why is it not done yet? Because most can not visualize it’s potential, even here among Outline Fantatics maybe half can not see the fuss. How can we expect ordinary people or even LO devs to demand it with a zeal. It is not going to happen any time soon.

___________________________________________________________

3) What To Do?
Lets get real again. Who is the best bet to do this: LibreOffice’s WRITER, realistically.
AND they are also the best option due to being free and open source and committed to that spirit since the OpenOffice palava when many of the founder left to set up LO.

Who is to call for it: We see even non Outline Fanatics (you may call non-CRIMPers) are demanding in some numbers. that is your base.
How to do it: The only way now is to set up campaign asking LibreOffice for:
“A Full Featured DEEP Outline View for Writer”

How to initiate this campaign:
Join a few demanding it from LO
Create a blog, online petition, youtube videos, Twitter/Instagram/Facebook channels to ask for it, newsletter, etc
To inform and connect to the mobs we see in the 3 threads I linked
Ask them to inform and connect others about the potential
and continue this campaign.
Until LO devs take it up.

You need one or a few to start this. This is the only way “potentially possible”.
Otherwise no one among the big word processor contenders will do invest in the needed man hours.
Not going to happen anytime soon.

But if it is done, specially with good GUI UI/UX, it will change Word Processing, specially for the producers of content. Maybe done within a decade by someone.

___________________________________________________________

Afterword:
The next generation after such anoffering, probably in 20 or 30 years, would be linking into virtual boards and plugging that into semi AI (existing tech neural nets, nothing fancy) engine under the bonnet.

I have bought Causality (lifetime) and just can imagine something like that virtual board linked into a proper Deep Outline View of a heavy word processor: for creators of any type of content (fiction/non fiction/academic/reports/archives etc), it will be unimaginable for current generation.

But first before anything like that, the next immediate horizon emerging needs to be a :
“Full featured Deep Outline View, plugged into a heavyweight word processor”.

Mean time I am mixing an elite number of apps, about 15 from over 500 I have tested over the last few years, to do what I need done. Such an offering would retire 3 or 4 of the apps in my list of 15 and increase creative potential too. But life is short and I am not holding my breath or expecting this to come into reality any time soon.

Lets get real again, C’est la vie and I wish Outline Fanatics and authors as of yet blissfully ignorant of the potential in such a beast, good luck with it.
I have an appointment back on earth.