Thoughts on Ecco in light of recent events

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 7, 2008 at 06:29 PM

Ken wrote:
>But, I am surprised that more developers cannot see
>the value of customizable columns and the ability to look at the same data in different
>contexts. Perhaps I have not been looking, err I mean CRIMPing, hard enough, but I
>would have thoguth that this “concept” would be more polular over the years? Are
>MyInfo and IQ the only two that make an attempt to meet this need? Tagging and
>categories are great, but they do not easily seem to offer multiple views on the same
>data.

Well, frankly, I would argue that tagging is indeed a way of showing different views of the same data. So are other possibilities provided by the various info managers discussed here:

- Imagine a common two-pane outliner, where information items are organised on a hierarchical tree.
- Now imagine those items being tagged, and tags organised on another hierarchical tree.
- Now switch to the tag tree view (you can do this in Surfulater for example) and you instantly have another view of the information items.
- Surfulater in particular can also show a chronological tree, with items automatically organised in month folders. (From what Neville Franks has written, other views may be offered in the future).

Here’s another approach in mind mapping:

- Imagine a mind map with a central topic and several branches.
- Now imagine being able to choose any topic from any branch and rearrange the map by making that topic the central one (I think MindGenius can do that; obviously, the program actually relying on this approach as its main advantage is Personal Brain)

Now, obviously, all of the above are modern “visual” approaches, and what you are referring to are more classic “database” views. I would argue that not all data is suitable for depicting on a table.

In any case, it is true that there’s very few information managers that combine outlining with multiple database columns. You mentioned InfoQube, which is by far the most versatile, and rapidly developing. Another one is List Pro which is definitely worth a second look. I should also mention UltraRecall, though its columns can’t be viewed on the tree.

In addition, it is worth noting that “attributes” are slowly but steadily making their way to mindmapping. Both Freemind and Mind Manager support attributes for their topics. I imagine that it’s only a matter of time before someone offers the ability to view those attributes in a single sortable table.

Cheers
Alexander