TheBrain on sale through cyber Monday

Posted by 22111
Nov 26, 2020 at 03:14 PM

Ok, it’s me again: You’d be foolish to buy TB at 20 p.c. off, and even at 80 p.c. off or something.

“$299 - Renews at - $159 / year”

So let’s have a look. In fact, when in https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/9182/0/thebraindead-hopefully-not-yet I said, from my bona fide experience, that the regular TB was “parent ‘thought’ plus its immediate (!) children ‘thoughts’”, I was hoping for being wrong, for having made some mistake on my own, and that the (hence: dire) TB reality was less awful indeed… but then, my post didn’t get any comment, all the less so any comment setting me wrong.

Again, let’s have a look. Any outliner, and all the more so a (i.e. the only one, to our knowledge?) graphical one, should get some “views” indeed, but first “listen” to the TB site: https://www.thebrain.com/store/compare-editions (today Nov 26, 2020):

“Pro Features - Expanded Layout - Outline Layout - Mind Map Layout” (I took a screenshot, don’t mind). So:

*Expanded Layout” seems to be a lie now, since for many (ok: several) years, there does not seem to be any “expanded layout” in TB, “Pro” or whatever…

But let’s look at the layouts available; as said by me, the “regular” layout (I don’t remember their denomination, it’s number one in their layout menu, “Outline/Mind Map” being number 2 and 3, or the other way round between them, doesn’t matter) is the only one within the “free” (i.e. trial) version, whilst number 2 and 3 also are available within the “Pro”. Ok.

Under “Outline Map”, I understand - my fault! - some outline VIEW, just as in Mindjet (now “Mindmap” again, and Corel-owned): the items ordered within a tree. (Here, let’s remind us that Mindjet/Mindmap(WhateverIt’sCalled Currently), within the past at least, did NEVER offer transclusion, so it’s ONLY use was for presentation purposes, NOT also for devising.)

Under “Mind Map”, I then understand what “Mindjet”/whateveritscallednow does regularly indeed.

And now for “Expanded View” (which TB even currently pretends it’s there, but which seems to not being there): It would be some enhanced “regular view”. So for the regular view to be expected… (and which would be FAR from what I’ve described in the linked thread and supra):

Some item, plus either ALL its “children” (i.e. its “progeny”, not only the immediate children), or then, those “children”, up to some indentation level, that level ideally to be (very fast then) optioned by the user (whilst the default might be 3 sub-levels, seems to be realistic to me; and the current option for any such “parent” item should be stored indeed).

Then, “expanded view”: The same, but together with all “lateral” (i.e. “third-dimensional”) “connections”, and there again, with specific “user-preset” “show-downs” for any one of them, and also distinguishing between “incoming” and “outgoing” connections, the former or latter being “clickable”, e.g., but not necessarily also “expanded” on their own on spot…

Remind yourself that such functionality has nothing to do with the (seemingly extremely complicated) coding of the “graphics”, but just needs some more db tables, for the records, and the same principle would apply to any other, “regular” outliner, and remember I detailed all this here in this very forum, several years ago.

And yes, if you, within their trial (“free”, hoho!) vesion, switch to “OutlineMap” or “MindMap”, you’ll get a some- (10? 12?) seconds PREVIEW of that “view” / “Map”, and let me tell you, it’s really poor… and that’ll be ALL you’ll obviously get by paying the above-mentioned prices…

And, to say it all, a GRAPHICAL outliner comes with an implicit promise: to get you that fourth dimension: “to show it complete”... and oh, no, the TIME dimension isn’t there, whilst the 3 dimensions, item, children, connections, can perfectly be realized by any traditional 2- (better: 3-pane) outliner… and in fact and in reality, even more precisely by those, currently, than by TB-without-“Expanded-View” nowadays…

Thus, even on the implied (?) conceptional level, and with TB, you (not only!!!:) currently just get a sham, a bluff package, since even WITH “Expanded View” - whenever it’ll be introduced again… -, the temporal (i.e. fourth) dimension will NOT being displayed, and, with all due respect, for “outlining” in its narrowest sense, which is, “projecting”, how ever could you successfully do without it, hey?

Thus, let’s come down to the facts, to REALITY: What else would/could ever do TB for you, currently or even with the “Expanded View” re-introduced in some more years or some decennials, than, e.g., UltraRecall (which isn’t THAT good on its own indeed)?

Nothing. Nada. And then, even with their regular view “sole item plus its immediate children” (and less than ten in all), TB’s spacial use of my (big) screen was foul… but, really, incredibly vile.