Maps e.g., etc.

Posted by 22111
Jun 5, 2022 at 12:30 PM

I recently read some other lines about maps,

“dimkanovikov
Using a relationships map is very easy - just create characters, configure them (photo, name, story role) and then you can order them on the virtual surface and add relations between them.
What about planning stories - in the current version such tools are unavailable, but we plan to create a lot of useful tools for outlining (beats, cards & timeline) in the future updates.” ( https://www.reddit.com/user/dimkanovikov/ )

You know that I have written in this forum, extensively, about “TheBrain” (or whatever they call it currently), and you know that I qualify it “promises not met”...

The above citation isn’t but just another proof of “maps are your static trap” - they just represent some situation at point “time 0000:00:00:00” (to follow our Gregorian calendar), and then nothing - if you “follow” maps, you’ll be pitied…

And yes, you could do a “suite” of such maps (“snap shots”), and even them would hold-you-back, believe me… (since the members of a choir should sing in sync… (which doesn’t imply, unisono) whilst your figures-in-a-landscape should not…)

Thus, in the end, you can just rely on your brain, and its facility to (more or less reliably and/or “impressively”, in fact “traceably” for your further thinking) retain “development”, in its memory / memories; in other words, relying on maps will even hinder your thinking, instead of fulfilling your dream of “back-up” it.

I also came along, recently, by https://www.pureref.com/ , the developers of which will be happy with your contribution of 5 or 10 bucks, and indeed, if you rely upon e.g. “Ulysses” for your writing, you might have some use for such additional software, whilst in Ultra Recall e.g., you would just insert a “pic” item within your natural “suite” of items, and then UR will, whenever you “activate” that item, provide an in-house pic viewer to admire your “idea / mood pic” - OMG (for both situations)!

Speaking of “Ulysses”, my initial appreciation had been guided by my misinterpretation of its title, and indeed, it’s NOT a writing tool promising some Ariadne (sic! you learn a lot about language and other things, once you’ll open your mind!) to their subscribers - and that had been Theseus, not Ulysses indeed: my fault again! -, but “Ulysses” stands in there just for the same reason as that - aforementioned by me, for some other “writers’ app” - “Hemingway mode” exists: it’s just there for selling the app, by comforting the buyer, “yeah, you too, dear subscriber, will become immortal in the end! - my “OMG” here being much more clarion than the one above, obviously.

Over there, I suggested that Ul subscribers kindly asked for “tree formatting”, and all I got - from a “contributor” whose “contributions” might be qualified a little bit of “stalled”, quality-wise, in the end -, was something like “OMG” (I cite from memory) - be it!

Since if you’re happy with Ul, everything’s fine, even when those hideous “**”, etc. are NOT hideable, for the time being, and whenever you wanna see your formatting - and obviously, Ul isn’t made for also holding your “material”, in numbers, and whatever its developer may pretend about his specific “material” item format.

Also, there ain’t no “corkboard” functionality, as it’s in “Scrivener”, but then, but then, I think that ugly “corkboards” are just needed whenever the tree functionality is sub-standard…

So, let’s look at Ul’s core functionality, it being the ace (!) frontend for WordPress and similar web site tools, and here, yes indeed, it might be your tool of choice?!

They claim - not owning any Mac, as said, and thus not being able to verify - that Ul not only can POST to WordPress, etc., but that it also enables you to EDIT your WP, etc. posts, and IF they’re right, Ul should be THE WP, etc. frontend of your choice indeed.

Thus, you would freely edit, in some Ul tree / file - btw, Ul seems to be multiple-XML (with every Ul “page” being its own XML file on your file system or wherever, haha!), a very interesting IM concept which its developers currently and obviously have not yet followed to its very promising extremes! -, your faithfully replicated - WP web site, with just local “saves”, and then, whenever you click on “Reload” (or whatever), Ul would update your web page, wherever that need would apply.

So far, so ideal - for the time being, I doubt that it’ll function that way, since for “publishing” (a single item) to web, they have published a vid, whilst I haven’t found the corresponding proof for edit sessions’ bulk upload…

Whatever: language is your friend, and parallel timelines in / from MS Excel are possible, from Excel tables (but it’s not that easy I admit, advanced MS functionality never having been what they call “user-friendly”)... whilst e.g. Aeon Timeline is a mess, most such software is subscription now, and Timeline Maker Pro, whilst being “eye-friendly” on first sight - their examples being visually appealing indeed -, seriously lacks functionality, just compare with MS Excel (and what it can do “for free” in that field instead - once you’ll have got MS Excel bought / installed anyway, that is).

At the end of the day, everybody, I think, would be happy to pay even $ 100 a month, or more, for some tool that finally enhanced their thinking / imagination, but that isn’t to come soon.

Thus, just avoid, at least, all those “apps” that might even hamper what you intend to do, e.g. Ul - just my advice, take it or leave it;

alleged-beauty-by-minimalism on-screen being one thing… some end-product which really comes-to-real-life, i.e. not just being published-and-quickly-forgotten, but revealing itself as to be charming, enchanting… being some quite other category… and thus, you should not deliberately do without the necessary functionality that might help indeed… notwithstanding lazy developers’ “elegant visual style” claims of literally no value if you start to think’em over.

P.S. As for the maps, well, even vids won’t help: You just have to FEEL the development of figures, of phenomena of all sorts, entrenched within their respective “environment”, and then try to “make sense” of those (individual, then “outgrowing”) “developments”: try to encompass what you feel (the French word being “cerner”), and then balance it up, “match” it with what you’ve already got, and even more so, with what you can derive-of-it-then:

Pics-n-graphics on-screen won’t help; it’s the blurred ones in your head which’ll do, and let me close with a citation of my beloved, genial Allen (from his - “inferior”, just by his (!) standards, “Magic in the Moonlight” - the “proposal scene” of which is pure joy e.g.! - and citing from memory, again:)

“So, it seems like yoghurt, but in fact it’s your gone husband.”

An’then, especially people who’ve got nothing to say, should never try to resume many lines within a dozen of letters… just trust me, here again.