Structured Document Editors?

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jul 28, 2010 at 07:49 PM

Dave Ewins wrote:
>With regard to
>Import/Export a generic (BrainStorm) Html Import solution (via SenseToWebpage) is
>scheduled for trial version availablity later this week or early next.

Great! However, I am not sure all outliners that export to HTML provide similar hierarchy information. Will have to test this in practice.

>Sense OPML support could be provided using a similar
>document format. Please let me know if this document format is acceptable?

I believe it is. A cross platform outliner which works well with OPML is Notecase Pro http://www.virtual-sky.com/index.php Its developer is equally responsive and added OPML and tab indented text support following user suggestions.

I would note that import is as important as export since, depending on the occasion, I can imagine using Sense either (a) as the starting point or (b) at a later stage, to edit a text whose structure has brainstormed e.g. via a mind mapping application.

>For text files, I’m sure there
>must be ideas regarding tab and space indentation, their usage and significance?

This is actually quite clear. Top levels have no indent. Thereon, each level is represented by a tab, i.e.

Level 0

[TAB]Level 1

[TAB][TAB]Level 2

etc

Re import, it is possible that some applications will note use tab characters but rather a number of spaces. It would be good (but not essential) if Sense can be rather clever in this. I.e., Brainstorm will deduce the levels by understanding how many spaces are used to represent a level change. Brainstorm has a good tab indented text export feature, accessible via Write Text File in the File menu.