Apps that offer cloning of notes

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 30, 2019 at 08:26 PM

The most basic example I would offer is the classic file system, where files and folders follow strict hierarchies: with the help of junctions or symbolic links (the term may differ per OS), it is possible for the same file or folder to appear in several hierarchies.

Re TheBrain: this has multi-parent relationships, which in practice is what clones attempt to replicate in outliners and mind mappers, i.e. tools where the hierarchies are much more strict. ‘Relationships’ in mind maps are a similar attempt to bypass the strict structure.

Similarly, one wouldn’t need clones in a concept map, where anything may be connected to anything.

To take another example, in a classic flat-file database, an entry can only be part of one specific table/list. In a relational database, that entry may link to (and be linked to from) multiple tables, representing different groupings. To replicate this in a flat-file, redundancy is required; i.e. copies of the same entry would have to be included in several tables in order to support multiple groupings. ‘Cloning’ would then amount to keeping those copies in sync.

(Of course, in practice, this is an ineffective way of doing things, so relational solutions are preferable to organise data in such cases.)

Paul Korm wrote:
>On that list—I don’t think TheBrain 10 does cloning / aliases