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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 2, 2014 at 08:41 AM
Dr Andus wrote:
>Thanks for that, Alexander. The above features do sound interesting. Who
>would you say the main competitors are here? MS Word? Scrivener? I’m
>intrigued by Sense, but somehow I haven’t managed to figure out where
>I’d fit it in within my various writing processes.
I think that Scrivener excels at the overview level, whereas Word is better for the detail (including formatting). SENSE is a sort of rare beast which facilitates continues switching between the two—but without the strong formatting / object embedding features. I can only compare it with Brainstorm. In this context, SENSE has much more powerful overview/navigation but not clones.
I don’t think that it is easy to integrate SENSE in an existing workflow like yours. Building a workflow around SENSE from scratch would probably make more sense (pun not intended)—and this is not a suggestion to yourself Dr Andus. I believe that SENSE could be brilliant in an academic setting, provided it added support for footnotes/endnotes and possibly LaTex and similar stuff. However I don’t do academic writing anymore so am not in the best position to judge.
Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 2, 2014 at 01:31 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>SENSE is a sort of rare
>beast which facilitates continues switching between the two—but without
>the strong formatting / object embedding features. I can only compare it
>with Brainstorm. In this context, SENSE has much more powerful
>overview/navigation but not clones.
Thanks for the explanation. Do you think SENSE would be useful for reverse outlining? For example, could I paste in/import e.g. a 10k word plain text (or RTF) and then gradually add headings of unlimited hierarchy (i.e. not just the usual 6 of HTML or 9 of MS Word), all the way down to every single paragraph, should it be necessary?
Currently I use Outline 4D or Scrivener for that sort of work, but I’m wondering if SENSE might offer some advantages. Personally I don’t need footnotes, endnotes, referencing or LaTeX, as I either use Markdown and raw EndNote codes (plain text), or just basic formatting in RTF, such as headings, italics, and block quote indentation.
Posted by Wayne K
Mar 3, 2014 at 01:13 AM
I downloaded the trial thinking this might be something that would provide a different slant for organizing research. All I can say is, be prepared for a serious time commitment to figuring this thing out unless you’re smarter than me (you probably are).
I tried reading the tutorial by following links to various topics. It seemed obvious to me that there would be a navigation arrow that would allow you to go back to where you just came from like you can do in Onenote. I could find no such command on the toolbar. That would seem like an obvious thing to have.
Next I tried to open a blank document so I could experiment with entering information but the “New” and “Open” commands in the File menu are grayed out.
I spent an hour on this thing and didn’t get out of the batter’s box.
Wayne
Posted by Dave Ewins
Mar 3, 2014 at 05:04 AM
Dr Andus wrote:
> Do you think SENSE would be useful for
>reverse outlining? For example, could I paste in/import e.g. a 10k word
>plain text (or RTF) and then gradually add headings of unlimited
>hierarchy (i.e. not just the usual 6 of HTML or 9 of MS Word), all the
>way down to every single paragraph, should it be necessary?
>
Plain Text and RTF files may be imported into Sense using the relevent plugins. [href=http://forum.silvaelm.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4285]How to Create Headed Hierarchy from a Text File[/url] details the proceedure using the Open Dialog for latest Sense versions.
The principle is much the same for RTF files where Word Headings are translated to Sense Sections (Headings).
Plain text may also be pasted directly into a Sense document: in this case, conversion to headings and hierarchical organization would have to be carried out manually using Convert To and Move context menu options within the Browser Pane.
The heading hierarchy is effectively unlimited.
Posted by Dave Ewins
Mar 3, 2014 at 05:30 AM
Wayne K wrote:
>I tried reading the tutorial by following links to various topics. It
>seemed obvious to me that there would be a navigation arrow that would
>allow you to go back to where you just came from like you can do in
>Onenote. I could find no such command on the toolbar. That would seem
>like an obvious thing to have.
>
>Next I tried to open a blank document so I could experiment with
>entering information but the “New” and “Open” commands in the File menu
>are grayed out.
A toolbar option for forward / backward link Navigation is available: ensure the Link toolbar is enabled via Options Tools main menu.
Sense is not an MDI Editor—the New and Open menu options will be grayed out if a document is already open.
If this doesn’t help, may I kindly suggest you contact support via http://www.silvaelm.com/contact.shtml.