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Outliner to find associations
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Posted by Sebastien Berthet
Jan 18, 2007 at 02:01 AM
Hello,
I’m looking for a outliner for my (fiction) writing works. I need a very accurate feature, I’ve tested dozens of outliners and they all lack it, so I’m afraid I’m doomed to CRIMT (“T” because I Test all, I don’t Purchase all… yet). I always read the posts of the great experts on this forum, and I would be very happy to get their help on this specific question.
A foreword : I use Treepad to gather data and ideas, SuperNoteCard for structuring the story and Word for the final text (on Windows).
What I would love is an outliner able to propose me *associations* on the fly. Indeed, when I write, I constantly gather some keywords out of my new text and use them to do a manual search in Treepad to discover which ideas, snippets and notes could be used to complete and improve this new text.
I simply think that this part of the writing process could be automated in the outliner : an outliner which would scan my notes constantly, while I type a new note, and show me all the notes that could be linked to this new note (the scan algorithm is a full-text search of all the words of the new note being typed) would be heaven.
I know Treepad doesn’t do this, does anyone know a tool which would do this ?
Thanks in advance,
Sebastien
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jan 18, 2007 at 05:45 AM
Sebastien
>What I would love is an outliner able to propose me *associations* on the
>fly. Indeed, when I write, I constantly gather some keywords out of my new text and use
>them to do a manual search in Treepad to discover which ideas, snippets and notes could
>be used to complete and improve this new text.
>
>I simply think that this part of the
>writing process could be automated in the outliner : an outliner which would scan my
>notes constantly, while I type a new note, and show me all the notes that could be linked
>to this new note (the scan algorithm is a full-text search of all the words of the new
>note being typed) would be heaven.
The only tool I know that does something in that direction is Devonthink - but that is a Macintosh application.
What I mean by “in that direction” is: As far as I know, DT does not pop up a window suggesting links when you type a new note. After you save a new note, a button called “See also” appears that lets you find related notes. The “Classify” feature allows you to have DT automatically add the new note to an existing group of notes. Both features use keywords inside the note(s).
On the Windows side, I haven’t seen anything comparable (but I do not know ADM later than vs2 and Zoot).
Bye, Franz
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 18, 2007 at 06:19 PM
Sabastien,
Unfortunately, I am afraid that you are right, that you will not find what you are looking for… though it does sound like it would be a wonderful feature to have.
I wonder if this is a facility that Tinderbox (for the Mac) has… if so, they are planning to introduce a PC version… although that’s been in the works for ages. Anyway, that’s the only possible glimmer of hope that I can give you.
Steve Z.
Posted by Ken Ashworth
Jan 18, 2007 at 06:38 PM
Sebastien,
This really intrigued me, I still haven’t figured out what terms to use in a Google search.
I did come across these links, and I’m wondering if this is on track to what you are looking for?
PR Release:
http://exitpath.prwebdirect.com/releases/2005/3/prweb219298.php
Which led to this link - eXpertSystem Author:
http://richcontent.blogs.com/creative_questions/
Which all leads back to this HomePage:
http://www.ideacenter.com/
This last link is very confusing as to just what their product is - seems to be a lot of different flavors on the same theme.
Later,
KenA
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jan 18, 2007 at 09:45 PM
Stephen
>I wonder if this is a facility that Tinderbox (for the Mac) has…
I am afraid Tinderbox does not have that capability. (at least, I couldn’t find it - speaking about the current 3.6.1 release).
Franz