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Whoops! I meant: IdeaMason vs UltraRecall
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 22, 2007 at 05:35 PM
Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Hugh, what would make UltraRecall a better writing tool for you?
>
Here is my highly subjective opinion on this question: I don’t think any program that has its outline discreet from its editing panels is ideal for writing. In other words, the ideal writing application would be a single-pane outliner the way that GrandView was and NoteMap is. NoteMap fails as the ideal writing application for other reasons. One of these being that in NM you can’t have inline text associated with but separate from a heading. In GrandView an outline consisted of hierarchical headings, and each of those headings could be the home for pages of text. This text could be viewed as part of the outline, it could be hidden, so only the outline was visible, or you could zoom in on just the text. I hope I’m being clear. It was this ability to zoom in on one part of the overall project, or zoom out to see the entire project that made GrandView unique and so powerful as a writing environment. Good writing requires the ability to concentrate on what you are currently working on, but to also see your work holistically. I don’t think writing in UltraRecall or any of the two-pane outliners gives you this holistic view.
This does not mean that you can’t produce good writing in a program like UR—of course you can, just like you can produce good writing on a typewriter. You just won’t be taking advantage of the potential benefits that technology should provide. Of course, the fact that there isn’t currently a program with the features I describe, does sort of force you to make compromises. I’m not altogether very familiar with IdeaMason, but I recall that it provides a feature in which you can view your work as one long, concontenated document. This isn’t perfect, but it is better than most applications provide.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents worth—and I am probably over charging.
Steve Z.
Posted by Cassius
Mar 23, 2007 at 04:10 AM
Steve Z said of NoteMap, “NoteMap fails as the ideal writing application for other reasons. One of these being that in NM you can’t have inline text associated with but separate from a heading. In GrandView an outline consisted of hierarchical headings, and each of those headings could be the home for pages of text. This text could be viewed as part of the outline, it could be hidden, so only the outline was visible, or you could zoom in on just the text. I hope I’m being clear. It was this ability to zoom in on one part of the overall project, or zoom out to see the entire project that made GrandView unique and so powerful as a writing environment. Good writing requires the ability to concentrate on what you are currently working on, but to also see your work holistically.”
If I understand this correctly, NoteMap can do most of the outlining operations that GV can. For example, if you create an outline heading (=topic=node), and press CTRL-ENTER, you can type in a separate paragraph within that heading. You can have many paragraphs (= lots of text) associated with that heading: Just use CTRL-ENTER to start each new paragraph.
NoteMap’s Outline/Fold menu command will hide the paragraphs (text) and just show the heading, But I don’t think NoteMap has GV’s ability to show the text without the heading.
NoteMap can also hoist/de-hoist, merge and split, mark and gather, etc.
NoteMap negatives include: No graphics, no links between items within an outline, and if one pastes a block of several paragraphs into NoteMap, each is treated as a separate outline heading. This can make pasting clippings into NoteMap a PITA (=irksome).
Inspiration has several nice outlining capabilities, but the more mundane editing features tend to be clunky/irksome.
-c
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 23, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Cassius wrote:
>NoteMap can do
>most of the outlining operations that GV can. For example, if you create an outline
>heading (=topic=node), and press CTRL-ENTER, you can type in a separate paragraph
>within that heading. You can have many paragraphs (= lots of text) associated with
>that heading: Just use CTRL-ENTER to start each new paragraph.
>
>NoteMap’s
>Outline/Fold menu command will hide the paragraphs (text) and just show the heading,
>But I don’t think NoteMap has GV’s ability to show the text without the
>heading.
>
>NoteMap can also hoist/de-hoist, merge and split, mark and gather,
>etc.
>
Cassius,
You are right. I had never thought of those work arounds. It’s not clean the way GrandView was, but it would probably be effective. Thanks for the insight.
Steve Z.