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Biz Graphics or Outliners' mix-up between just-grouping and order (and Scapple being about your-getting-what-you-pay-for)
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Posted by Amontillado
Mar 20, 2023 at 06:18 PM
Good advice.
Franz Grieser wrote:
Interesting. But I stopped reading when you started insulting an
>honorable member of this club.
Posted by satis
Mar 21, 2023 at 12:59 AM
GPT 0.9
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Mar 21, 2023 at 01:30 PM
The personal references to Tightbeam are offensive, and have no place in this group. I am sure the “implicit approval” you speak of having from Chris Murtland does not extend to your insults directed toward Tightbeam and others.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 22, 2023 at 09:02 AM
22111 is not, alas, reading your comments on his splurges. He’s simply using the forum as a platform for thoughts.
If they were more coherent and presented without the Tourettes-like need to insult, do down or dismiss members of the forum (or indeed anyone else), they would be quite interesting and no doubt give rise to useful discussions.
As it is, I’m afraid many of us don’t bother to read them, simply because they are so self-indulgent.
Posted by 22111
Mar 22, 2023 at 09:39 AM
I
Re short outline/list (1) vs. development outline (2) above:
So, instead of linking from 1 into 2 (as I had said in a thread before), you much better might link from 2 into 1
(technically, both those links are implicitely directed (sic!), since in both cases, it’s a “foreign body” (and clearly recognizable as such), either from (1) in (2), or, obviously much better indeed, from (2) in (1))
i.e. you might (as said above) italicize (or “red” or “orange”...) the (2) item, in order to indicate even in (2) that there is / might be a coherence problem, AND you might additionally link the (2) item to the (1) element which currently is affected by the (2) element’s character: this will, in practice,
considering that (1) should ideally only have 1 or, at the very most, 2 levels per se,
introduce a further level into (1), or then at least create additional (but specifically formatted) siblings on the second level, indicating “problems”;
and whilst in “creative” writing, this could enhance selling chances, in “factual” or “fake-factual” writing (remember: even in propaganda, it’s all about coherence…), it will at least very much please your editor…
there is always a risk of “over-engineering” here indeed, so perhaps instead of multiplying those (implicitely) directed links, you might reconsider, at that moment in time, to reallocate some of your efforts / time you currently - prematurely? - dedicate to (2), to (1) again instead… but that’s just my suggestion then…
As for the creating the link, your tool should provide it with / by just 2 keys in total; with UR, and if you organize your things well, that’s the case (remember: you link 1 element of many to 1 element of just few elements here): F-key, 1 key between a..z or 0…9, and then you can even spare yourself the {enter}: makes 2 keys in all and indeed (takes 1s incl. the link creation).
II
Re F = flowcharters (M=Micrografix 2000 incl. ABC Flowcharter) vs Scapple (incl. similar)
(After M2000, there were others from M, and especially for process management, with lanes and other goodies, different version at different prices; current state of affairs unknown to me, didn’t get thru their now-Corel chaos (and mostly subscription now anyway), and for process management, I had mentioned some alternative tool above.
Writing from memory, from more than ten years ago, so I might be mistaken, but I think I’m not:)
1) M (20, 25, 30 years ago) much better than Scapple (today):
In F, you have, in some “canvas”, a) symbols, “shapes”, and b) “connectors”, “vectors”, “arrows”, directed (by arrow head) or not (no head) or even doubly directed (heads on both ends); not speaking here of “lanes” and such.
All (or almost all) such shapes, in all these tools, allow some text within, or overlayed, to those shapes, you might call that the shape(‘s) text, since it’s more than just a “title”, and e.g. Scapple’s available screenshots come with LOTS of text within the canvas, and no wonder, since, as said, “no Notes pane here”...
(Btw, I remember that M’s shape texts even allowed partial formatting, i.e. and e.g. “Just SOME bold text within”, with just “some” being bolded - Scapple may allow for that, too, I don’t remember; on the other, I don’t know any 2- or 3-pane outliner even today which allows for such, partial, “item title” formatting, probably since the available components for which that would be no problem, would cost the developers some 4-digit subscriptions, and most of them refrain from spending that…)
M, on the other hand, additionally to that “canvas”, also had such a “Notes” pane, as said. A toggle key displayed / hid it, and you could position and resize it (persistent for the session, perhaps also between sessions; for example you could use 3/4 or your screen width for the canvas, and the remaining 1/4 for the Notes pane, in full screen height).
You had another toggle to switch focus between canvas (i.e. current shape or connector there) and the “Notes” pane; the “Notes” pane could contain rtf (i.e. formatted) text (and as said, ABC was extremely buggy with that (i.e. it regularly crashed), with M2000 then being stable at last).
Now, the shapes had a tiny “-N-” symbol if for that shape there was additional “Notes” text; the symbol then disappeared if you deleted that “Notes” text, and whilst technically, that text was another attribute (db column, xml tag, whatever) of the shape, whenever you switched focus from one shape to another, and with the Notes pane being displayed, the text in there switched, just the same way as it does in your usual 2- or 3-pane outliner’s (or in TB’s) content pane when you switch from one element to another within your “tree” / graph.
At the time (with ABC), I tried to extensively use that “Notes” pane, since, in theory, it was a wonderful tool, but in practical use, with constantly crashing, that was not realistic… (stable, as said) M2000 then came too late for me, since at the time, I had already created my own tool, and since that got unstable beyond 6- or 7,000 items, due to very bad work memory management of the underlying scripting tool (by Billyboy’s “pal” Allen…), I had switched to askSam at the time (bought / upgraded to several versions), not needing a conceptional tool anymore, but a stable repository for masses of text at the time.
2) Even M was not really good enough
From the above, you “learned” that M came with a wonderful, integrated (sic!) “further development” feature, for… the shapes…
But that Notes pane was NOT also available for the connectors, too, whilst it’s clear as day though that the relationships between the elements (=shapes here, or “items” in outliners) are often even more important than those, and in case will need lots of “Notes” on their own indeed…
So, at the time, I “helped” myself by putting, within the connectors, special shapes, just big dots with no text, and which then served as containers for the “Notes” attribute I needed for the underlying connector, but then, whenever I moved the shapes
(and flexibility of your “arrangements” is one of the core purposes of an F… I’m not sure if TB-paid now offers an F-mode with manual (!) and then persistent (!) arrangement of your elements…),
and whilst the connectors themselves “followed fine” (when in Scapple e.g. though, connectors are very poorly implemented currently), their corresponding “Notes Dots” were systematically left behind (as expected of course), and that made a somewhat “less than optimal UX”, to put it mildly (and Scapple users, not even having “Notes” for their shapes, create chaos on the canvas instead, or then constantly switch between two tools…).
Btw, nowadays, with our 2- and 3-pane outliners, you have a similar problem: You will need additional, correctly named elements between the “shape” elements, in order to get the necessary content pane for the relationship(s) between the two: “Some A”, then “Some A - Some B”, or even “Some A - relationship a - Some B” (and ditto for their relationship b, etc.) - then only “Some B”:
It’s obvious that this is far from “elegant”, to say the very least, whilst in M, you even had several (or multiple in case) connectors between two shapes instead, just, as explained, without the necessary “Notes” attribute, except then by (multiple, in case), not-connected “Notes Dots” - it’s evident, that technically, it’s easy to apply the same attribute to connectors, in Fs, as to Fs’ shapes - you just have to think about it…
whilst “connection management” in 2- and 3- (or multiple-) pane outliners remains, for the time being, an unresolved problem.
@Mad (if not dozed off): reactionary… oops: reactionally, of course!