Dr Andus wrote:

Just to distill what I was getting at in the previous post: I think the
ultimate outliner needs to have a very easy (drag-n-drop, hotkey,
markup) internal and external linking capability, so that all items and
notes can be linked to each other, can link to items and notes in other
applications, and they can be linked to from other apps too.

I beg to (partly) differ: as far as external linking goes, your approach is fine for me, as the linked material isn't within the outline anyway, so one might as well deal with it as if it were a footnote or endnote; i.e. with a [1] or other mark within the detail text, which links to the external resource. I think it could also be useful to automatically gather all such external links in a separate pane.

However, in respect to internal links, it seems to me that the usual URL-type link actually works counter-productively. The reason is that if you put this in the detail text, it is not shown in the outline, and thus obscures the real structure.

I believe that clones are a much more outline-friendly solution to the issue of internal linking: if entity A in the outline refers to entity B in the same outline, all you have to do is create a clone of the referenced entity (B) as a child or sibling of entity A. This reference is then apparent in the outline, helping someone see both the wood and the tree.

I have never appreciated the wiki way in particular; I find it very powerful but non-conducive to structure. Again, for me outliners are tools to bring order out of chaos, and therefore structure is paramount. It appears that the Piggydb creator has a similar issue with wikis, because the main way to link text fragments in Piggydb is outside the fragment detail, making the relationships an integral part of the fragment overview.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Dr Andus wrote:
>Just to distill what I was getting at in the previous post: I think the
>ultimate outliner needs to have a very easy (drag-n-drop, hotkey,
>markup) internal and external linking capability, so that all items and
>notes can be linked to each other, can link to items and notes in other
>applications, and they can be linked to from other apps too.

I beg to (partly) differ: as far as external linking goes, your approach
is fine for me, as the linked material isn't within the outline anyway,
so one might as well deal with it as if it were a footnote or endnote;
i.e. with a [1] or other mark within the detail text, which links to the
external resource. I think it could also be useful to automatically
gather all such external links in a separate pane.

I realise the wiki way is not everyone's cup of tea. However, what I had in mind here doesn't necessarily have to be implemented the wiki way. I was thinking of ConnectedText's outlining capabilities when I was writing this. For one, CT can be used as a single-pane and a two-pane outliner without using any of its wiki functionality (seriously!). In CT's outliner there is no such thing as internal linking between outline items. All you can link to is CT's topics (notes) with a simple drag-and-drop, which then creates a two-pane outliner (outline items + notes), if you wish. In this case these links are "external" to CT's outliner but "internal" to the overall CT application, as you are linking to CT topics.

If you wanted to add proper "external links" to URLs and other files and apps, those can only be added within the body of the CT topics (notes), but then you'd need to use the wiki linking markup. But I don't insist on this for the "ultimate outliner." These could also be implemented the MS Word way...

However, in respect to internal links, it seems to me that the usual
URL-type link actually works counter-productively. The reason is that if
you put this in the detail text, it is not shown in the outline, and
thus obscures the real structure.

When I was talking about "internal links," I had Freeplane in mind, where you can link from one node to another. This can become useful once you have a very big outline and you may end up repeating yourself or touching on related topics, in which case linked topics help navigating (jumping) from one deep node to another related one at some other distant spot in the outline.

I believe that clones are a much more outline-friendly solution to the
issue of internal linking: if entity A in the outline refers to entity B
in the same outline, all you have to do is create a clone of the
referenced entity (B) as a child or sibling of entity A. This reference
is then apparent in the outline, helping someone see both the wood and
the tree.

Perhaps the two could be optional alternatives, i.e. one could choose between "internal link" or clone, in the manner of BrainStorm's namesakes(?)

I have never appreciated the wiki way in particular; I find it very
powerful but non-conducive to structure. Again, for me outliners are
tools to bring order out of chaos, and therefore structure is paramount.
It appears that the Piggydb creator has a similar issue with wikis,
because the main way to link text fragments in Piggydb is outside the
fragment detail, making the relationships an integral part of the
fragment overview.

I agree that outliners are for ordering things. However, my original proposition about the "ultimate outliner" was to span the whole writing process, from note-taking to drafting. So I could imagine some wiki functionality being useful for note-taking, tagging, analysis, organising. Then one can move on to hierarchical ordering using a specific outliner tool, whereby you pick out wiki documents containing textual fragments and start attaching them to a hierarchical outline (creating order out of chaos).

This is in fact exactly what CT's wiki + outliner can do. I recommend Steve's blog post on how this works (although I prefer to dock CT's outliner on the left, to simulate the traditional two-pane outliner look and feel):
http://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/outlining-in-connectedtext/

But, this does not need to be a wiki functionality. If piggydb can offer a different way, that's great. Or maybe it's just a matter of being able to have both a hierarchical view of folders containing notes and a flat view and a network view...

Dr Andus wrote:

When I was talking about "internal links," I had Freeplane in mind,
where you can link from one node to another. This can become useful once
you have a very big outline and you may end up repeating yourself or
touching on related topics, in which case linked topics help navigating
(jumping) from one deep node to another related one at some other
distant spot in the outline.

Yes, I understand; sorry, I interpreted internal links as wiki-type or URLs. The freeplane approach (actually supported by most modern mind mapping applications) seems reasonable; it follows the same visual concept as the main mind map itself. I am not sure how the links are shown in the outline view though.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>I believe that clones are a much more outline-friendly solution to the
>issue of internal linking

Dr Andus wrote:

Perhaps the two could be optional alternatives, i.e. one could choose
between "internal link" or clone, in the manner of BrainStorm's namesakes(?)

Yes, I agree. In reality they represent alternative approaches to displaying non-consequential relationships; links imply that "this item is related to this", whereas clones imply that "these two items are really one and the same; change the one and the other will change automatically". I could live with either approach, but I would find it confusing to have both in the same system.

Dr Andus wrote:

In terms of academic process flow, what I've been finding challenging is
to a) to be able to annotate a reading, b) have the annotations
organised thematically into a a hierarchy (outline) while preserving the
integrity of the original text, c) be able to make a selection of these
annotated sections (quotes and my comments) and integrate them into
another (overall) outline for the developing draft as inline notes.

Usually I end up with too many quotes and notes but only a selection
will be important later on. However, I don't know upfront, which one of
e.g. 10 equally interesting and relevant quotes will I select to be
included in the final text. So there needs to be some separation between
an initial hierarchical organisation of the quotes and notes and a
second outline for the final draft.

I have just about figured out a workflow process for this, as I've
described it in the previously mentioned blog post on
CT+Freeplane+Outline 4D with some AutoHotkey, but haven't had a chance
to fully trial it yet. My problem so far has been that I've been
reluctant to break up large readings into small textual fragments, for
the fear of generating too many items that might overwhelm me and also I
didn't want to lose the context of the original text.

Thanks to Manfred Kuehn's neat AHK script, I am now able to "copy to new
topic with link", which means that the original text will remain intact
but there will be a new topic created with the fragment that has a
hyperlink to its source. So I can use these fragments for constructing
the first outline, and then make a selection out of them for the second
outline. At one point this CT outline will be exported into a Freeplane
mind map, with links back to the fragments in CT, thus constructing a
virtual two-pane outliner with a mind map in one window and
corresponding notes in CT in another window.

I hope this description wasn't too obscure. I haven't spent enough time
with Piggydb but I have a feeling that it is looking for some kind of a
solution to this problem of dealing with textual fragments. Anyway, I
would expect from my ultimate tool to allow me to carry out this process
fairly easily. I think I've cracked it with my current system, but it
took a lot of messing about and it wouldn't have come about if Manfred
wasn't so kind to fix that script for me.

If anyone's interested, I summarised the above process flow into a chart:
http://drandus.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/academic_writing_process1.png

If anyone's interested, I summarised the above process flow into a
chart:
http://drandus.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/academic_writing_process1.png

Thanks. That makes it clearer.

As a writer I am allergic to the saying "a picture paints a thousand words" (I usually reply "I'd like that saying be illustrated") but sometimes... :-)

Franz Grieser wrote:

If anyone's interested, I summarised the above process flow into a
>chart:

http://drandus.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/academic_writing_process1.png

Thanks. That makes it clearer.

As a writer I am allergic to the saying "a picture paints a thousand
words" (I usually reply "I'd like that saying be illustrated") but
sometimes... :-)

Thanks Franz :)

The above chart could have been more representative by having an arrow between ConnectedText in Step 4 and Freeplane in Step 5, as the CT project outline would be exported as a .mm file and imported into Freeplane. This is an important relationship as the links to the selected CT topics will be preserved and remain clickable, thus turning CT+Freeplane into a virtual dual-pane outliner/notes organiser.

Also, Steps 5 and 6 should have been alongside each other or at least there should have been arrows pointing back from 6 to 5, as the reverse outlining process is part of the drafting process. After writing 3 or 4 paragraphs I immediately add headings and sub-headings and slot them into Outline 4D's single-pane hierarchical outline.

Dr Andus wrote:

The above chart could have been more representative by having an arrow
between ConnectedText in Step 4 and Freeplane in Step 5, as the CT
project outline would be exported as a .mm file and imported into
Freeplane. This is an important relationship as the links to the
selected CT topics will be preserved and remain clickable, thus turning
CT+Freeplane into a virtual dual-pane outliner/notes organiser.

Also, Steps 5 and 6 should have been alongside each other or at least
there should have been arrows pointing back from 6 to 5, as the reverse
outlining process is part of the drafting process. After writing 3 or 4
paragraphs I immediately add headings and sub-headings and slot them
into Outline 4D's single-pane hierarchical outline.

Here is the amended chart, taking into consideration the above corrections:
http://drandus.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/academic_writing_process2.png

Doctor,
I notice Bonsai appears frequently in your wishlist.
I have used ECCO as a general purpose outliner for years for contact lists, family trees, diaries, work schedules, software evaluation, etc, etc.However the software has been getting increasingly 'fragile' over the years (I keep getting a warning that ECCO has failed; please restart, which I can ignore).
After a lot of research into a replacement I loaded Bonsai. This is so nearly ideal it is sad:
Some single pane outliners have columns. Dual pane outliners have a notes pane. But Bonsai seems to be unique in having a Notes pane AND columns. What a pity the columns are preset and cannot be renamed or re-data-typed, unlike ECCO.
(This text will be pasted into Bonsai with a reminder to check for reply(s).

pjbw wrote:

Some single pane outliners have columns. Dual pane outliners have a
notes pane. But Bonsai seems to be unique in having a Notes pane AND
columns.

I never thought about that... I guess there are so few single-pane outliners out there that it's fairly easy to be unique :) How about UV Outliner or Inspiration? Or are their notes inline only?

What a pity the columns are preset and cannot be renamed or

re-data-typed, unlike ECCO.

Yes, they missed a trick there...

pjbw wrote:

Some single pane outliners have columns. Dual pane outliners have a
notes pane. But Bonsai seems to be unique in having a Notes pane AND
columns. What a pity the columns are preset and cannot be renamed or
re-data-typed, unlike ECCO.

Well, apart for the obvious Infoqube, which you could call ECCO for the 21st century, there's also MyInfo with those two features.

pjbw wrote:

Doctor,
I notice Bonsai appears frequently in your wishlist.
I have used ECCO as a general purpose outliner for years for contact
lists, family trees, diaries, work schedules, software evaluation, etc,
etc.However the software has been getting increasingly 'fragile' over
the years (I keep getting a warning that ECCO has failed; please
restart, which I can ignore).

pjbw, have you tried the Ecco Extension authored by Slangmgh? If not, you may be amazed by how much it extends the capabilities of Ecco Pro. And a lot of the error messages you can get in Ecco are caused by the Ecco's limitations on the number of items you can put in a database or a folder; the Ecco Extension does not remove these limits completely, but it does do quite a lot in that regard. In other words ... if you used Ecco Extension, you might find that it makes Ecco a lot less fragile.

jimspoon wrote:

pjbw, have you tried the Ecco Extension authored by Slangmgh? If not,
you may be amazed by how much it extends the capabilities of Ecco Pro.
And a lot of the error messages you can get in Ecco are caused by the
Ecco's limitations on the number of items you can put in a database or a
folder; the Ecco Extension does not remove these limits completely, but
it does do quite a lot in that regard. In other words ... if you used
Ecco Extension, you might find that it makes Ecco a lot less fragile.

I used Ecco Extension on my previous office PC and it worked great. However, Norton Antivirus keeps deleting it from my new PC (not that new), saying it is a threat. Don't believe it is a threat, but I can't convince NA of this and it isn't worth the trouble to try to remedy the situation. Bummer.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I used Ecco Extension on my previous office PC and it worked great.
However, Norton Antivirus keeps deleting it from my new PC (not that
new), saying it is a threat. Don't believe it is a threat, but I can't
convince NA of this and it isn't worth the trouble to try to remedy the
situation. Bummer.

Steve, I knew I had seen something recently about this, and I found the following posted in the ecco_pro yahoo group:
"Starting with EE v4.5.6.6, there is a reduced chance that your AV software will incorrectly think EE contains malware. So if you are using an older version --
and that concerns you -- you might want to upgrade."

You may want to give EE another try - the current version of EE is 4.6.6.0.

I've managed to narrow down my requirements for my ideal set-up and workflow for academic writing (which must be similar to other non-fiction and perhaps even fiction writing) to the following:

1) a notes database that allows for hierarchical categorisation of large number of notes (e.g. as an outline that can serve as Table of Contents).

2) a single-pane outliner that can be turned into a dual-pane outliner by linking notes from above database to outline items.

3) another single-pane outliner that can be viewed alongside the dual-pane outliner in step 2 and which has inline notes as well as multiple headings for reverse outlining.

Ideally there is easy integration between these 3 aspects and steps, either as drag and drop or via import/export.

I have implemented the above system as follows: for 1) using ConnectedText as a database and CT's Project Outline pane as the "table of contents". For 2) using CT's Outline pane with links to CT's notes. For 3), using Outline 4D.

The only thing preventing me from using CT for step 3 as well is that CT only allows one view/edit window displayed at a time. So if you're looking at a note in step 2, you can't simultaneously be writing a draft in CT.

If there was another view/edit window, one could use CT for reverse outlining as well, using the text "folding" feature that can fold sub-headings and hide their text content, and the Table of Contents pane, which displays the hierarchy of headings. Though I have to say I enjoy doing the writing and reverse outlining in Outline 4D, due to all the visualisations and colouring options.

Are there any other PIMs, outliners, writing tools that could emulate this system?

Some further description/justification for the above workflow can be found here:
http://drandus.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/academic-writing-process-and-associated-tools/
http://drandus.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/academic-writing-workflow-with-connectedtext-freeplane-and-outline-4d/

Dr Andus wrote:

The only thing preventing me from using CT for step 3 as well is that CT
only allows one view/edit window displayed at a time. So if you're
looking at a note in step 2, you can't simultaneously be writing a draft
in CT.

Well, I didn't want to give the impression that it is not possible to use CT for this step at all. But it's not convenient. You either have to switch back and forth between the topic you are viewing and the one you're writing in, or you need to do the writing in its Notes pane, which is like Notepad, or you need to somehow enable some other editor in its browser pane.

If there was another view/edit window, one could use CT for reverse
outlining as well, using the text "folding" feature that can fold
sub-headings and hide their text content, and the Table of Contents
pane, which displays the hierarchy of headings.

Again, CT can already work as a reverse outliner, but you can't view another topic at the same time.

So let me repeat the question:

Are there any other PIMs, outliners, writing tools that could emulate
this system?

None of the above:

This is not a criticism of the features mentioned but part of my reply.

I don't want any jiggy jaggy multi-window media player movable pane getting in the way of my data.

While I admire OneNote and Basket NotePads and TreeSheet and other freeform applications, I hate how free form information managers move around like a sticky note and just won't stay still.

On the flip side, I also hate how limited lists programs like Brainstorm do it.

The best ideal interface I care for is a modular grid that snaps into place and functions like a browser speed dial for different purposes.

I also hate jargons like OPML that require you to understand what it does or else you might as well get locked in. This is not so much the case for me but for newbie notetakers. They don't deserve these confusion. Stick it to .txt or move it to a specific extension filename for the convenience of new users not used to dealing with software.

I also hate this bias towards one concept of visual mapping in mind maps. Move that feature out of my notetaker and instead "this" right here is where a developer should focus his freeform development abilities instead of messing with non-mindmap views.

Panes are like eye sores for one user and benefits for others. You can't really fix that.

Mind maps vs. concept maps vs. argument maps vs. constraint maps vs. goalscape pie maps vs. personalbrain?

It does not take a genius to realize that most of the problem there is basic movement and some software have already done it such as Flying Logic. You can add hoisting inside these feature too.

Goalscape's hoisting is far more intuitive than any other list based hoisting in my opinion.

It can be intuitive precisely because it's not hoisting but dealing with the focus of data itself. Hoisting can always be fixed by highlighting/annotations/in-line comments. The issue is not feature but data to brain recovery.

My ultimate outliner has to coincide with my ultimate personal productivity system which I believe has to coincide with my ultimate world view and it would be too long but I think what has not been mentioned so far is that the ultimate outliner is the ultimate file manager and that's a shame for a dedicated thread like this.

Have we not been splashed enough by our own CRIMPing? Have we not learned anything from all the software we used?

Mindmap generation inside notes? A HD disk usage analyzer could easily do that!

Hoisting? Making a single folder with a single item can hoist any object!

OPML? You can't edit data as easily from it unlike a portable folder functioning inside/indexed by a file manager. You probably need OneNote's built in OCR just to collect text from an image.

Where's the old file manager convenience of putting photo besides .txt besides .rtf and letting any gadget have an easy time dealing with it?

We're too spoiled. We've gone blind.

We no longer see the ultimate from the uncreative.

That's the reason we can't have a standard.