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Outliner/PIM roll call: Fall 2012
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Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 17, 2012 at 09:17 AM
reverendmartian wrote:
>Doc I took this from your March 2012 post on how you code in CT
I am lost within
>the first three directions.)
Well, the reason I set up the blog was exactly to have more space to explain this in more detail, so watch that space.
>1. I take a 20,000 word
>document (a transcript of an interview) and paste it into CT as a new
>‘topic’ (document).
>(So you cannot code pdf files in CT; gigantic
>shortcoming considering the predominance of that format.)
Well, there are advantages and disadvantages to coding PDFs within an application and its single project file or outside the application, or not coding PDFs at all. There is also an advantage to having to copy PDF (or any other) content into CT and analyse it there. It means you don’t ever have to go back to the original source again, which saves time and effort. Why bother going back to a PDF if you have already read it and and had extracted the key information? You can still have a link back to the file, BTW. But CT is the central database for content that matters (value-added, processed content).
> 2. I dock the table of
>contents window on the left, and have the edit view of the document on the right of
>it.
>(I cannot even maximize the TOC window much less dock it.)
Yes, docking can be a bit fiddly, especially for the novice. Search the CT forum for some desktop layouts and use those initially. Then you can save your own desktop templates as well.
> 3. I start reading
>through the document and “code” it by adding in headings (up to 5
>levels).
>(No such function as headings. ‘splain what you are talking about. Like do
>you highlight something in the word doc and then select some menu item; if so what is it
>since it ain’t “headings.”
Well, you do need to read the Welcome file to learn the basic mark-ups. It’s a wiki after all. The markup for the headings are the following:
=Heading 1=
==Heading 2==
===Heading 3===
====Heading 4====
=====Heading 5=====
Believe it or not, it’s quicker to type this than have to highlight text and select some icon on a ribbon, like in Word.
> 4. As headings are added, they start showing up in the TOC
>pane in the left, so I can see the hierarchy of the themes (codes).
>
>(Yeah so how is this any different than copying and pasting a word doc into the doc window of any two pane
>outliner like UR and then linking the selected text to an outline item.
It’s faster in CT. You can add headings to a text and the hierarchy (which I use as the “codes”) shows now automatically in the TOC in real time as you type. But the distinguishing feature is then the ability to incorporate the codes in other documents using CT’s “include” mark-up. I will really have to explain this on the blog, not over here.
Posted by kalkito
Sep 17, 2012 at 01:25 PM
I can imagine the annoyance of importing those big tables that articles have into CT. I’m guessing you have to use snipping tool and paste as an image, as I did when trialing CT. I’ve yet to find a pleasant to read richtext converson of an academic article.
(please ignore my english errors, Chrome dictionary problems)
Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 17, 2012 at 01:57 PM
kalkito wrote:
>I can imagine the annoyance of importing those big tables that articles have into CT.
>I’m guessing you have to use snipping tool and paste as an image, as I did when trialing
>CT. I’ve yet to find a pleasant to read richtext converson of an academic article.
Yes, that’s true, CT is not good with tables and I never bothered making one, let alone importing one. Yes, it would be easier to just add it as an image.
Another way to deal with that is to just add your analysis or interpretation of it in CT, without having to include the raw data. This would be using CT for managing value-added, processed material, rather than as a dumping ground for all data. This is the reason that I prefer to keep my 1000s of academic articles in EndNote and websites in Surfulater. Only a fraction of those will be truly important to the content that is being developed in CT, and so no point filling it up with not so relevant stuff.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 17, 2012 at 07:56 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
>This is the reason that I prefer to keep my 1000s of academic articles in
>EndNote and websites in Surfulater.
Have you tried the external links to EndNote references and Surfulater articles (sulkb://) ?
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 17, 2012 at 08:23 PM
shatteredmindofbob wrote:
>My set up is in a bit of a transition at the moment. I’m attempting to work with an all
>plain-text system, though on Windows where it’s far less trendy.
I’m in a similar situation. I’ve written elsewhere of the benefits of plain text, but reducing the footprint of my programs is another reason. So, I follow your post with a comparison of selected solutions.
>I’m using UV Outliner as a writing outliner.
It is Brainstorm for me; also Emeditor with the outline plugin more recently.
>Resophnotes, storing everything in text files to handle quick notes.
Same here. Along with Simplenote for syncing; though I had an issue with lost content recently and am feeling a bit insecure.
>I’ve been doing more of my actual writing in WriteMonkey
Same here. And Textroom in Linux.
>I’ve also enjoyed a little program called MarkdownPad, but it desperately needs spell check before it’ll be really useful.
Have you tried Asutype?
>TodoPaper for tasks/project management.
Once again looking for a workable solution for this; will try TodoPaper. In the meantime it’s GQueues (web) or simple text editors. I see that its developer plans to port it to Linux which is good news.
The thing is that I often need to have my task lists available on the road, so Android is often my starting point.
>E-mail and calendar is taken care of by Postbox with the Lightning extension.
Interesting; so you prefer Postbox to Thunderbird; do you find it more reliable or what?
>I’m in the process of evaluating some other apps to see if they’re useful to me.
I suggest you take a look (well, more than a look as it’s not so evident at first) to Sense.
>Ooh, I’m also playing with a text editor called SublimeText
Impressive indeed. My own choice is Emeditor. Among others, it has an nice simple outliner plugin; you can turn any simple test to a collapsable outline with a few prefix spaces.
A couple of additional useful goodies: Text Editor Anywhere, of which I heard here, brings up the editor of your choice whenever you have something to write, in whatever other program. And, PureText, which cleans text in the clipboard removing any formatting info, giving you plain text to paste anywhere.