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Advice on research software
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 17, 2013 at 06:14 PM
Also worth mentioning that FM Pro supports rich-text fields… although it doesn’t import e.g. RTF with all formatting, unfortunately.
Posted by Wayne K
Aug 17, 2013 at 07:35 PM
Yes, I’d already been thinking about the problem of maintaining contest if the material is broken up into snippets. You could partly get around this by assigning text needed for context to the same field as the “primary” text.
Re Access as a free-for database: I originally wrote “free-form databases and conventional databases like Access.”. I changed it because the previous thread had it listed under free-form. Should have gone with my first thought.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 17, 2013 at 08:59 PM
Another option to consider is Zoot. It combines the “spreadsheet” grid view you describe, with a full editor window. Its smart folders can be used to gather information as you need it. Worth a look.
Steve Z.
Posted by Dr Andus
Aug 17, 2013 at 09:04 PM
Wayne K wrote:
Yes, Steve, I’ve read his blog. I may very well go with ConnectedText
>but I was hoping to get some feedback on whether anyone has tried to use
>a regular database program for the kind of work I’m describing.
Here is an example of someone who chose MS Access over CT. You might find this interesting.
http://jostwald.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/to-tweak-or-to-chuck-that-is-the-question/
A general question I’d ask when evaluating software for this kind of project is how easy it is to import tens of thousands of notes, and then export them after processing (besides the issue of how to analyse and organise them, which was already touched upon).
It’s also an interesting question whether or not CT could be right for this project. While importing tens of thousands of small notes sounds theoretically doable, and CT’s properties/attributes/categories can take care of most of the required organising (and then there is still the additional wiki feature of linking, as a way of analysing), and there are good search and reporting functions, adding properties/attributes/categories manually to tens of thousands of notes sounds like a gargantuan task.
Having said that, if you want to explore the viability of doing all this in CT, I’d suggest signing up and asking the folks on the CT forum, as there very well may be imaginative shortcuts to accomplish the above.
Another thing to keep in mind is that CT v. 6 is on the way (the beta is already making the rounds). One new killer feature is going to be the so-called “named block”, which will allow one to mark up sections of text (i.e. what is called “coding” in qualitative data analysis) across the notes database, and then gather those segments in a separate document. This is exactly the same feature that those “expensive” QDA software have (such as NVivo, Atlas.ti, QDA Miner etc.).
Posted by 22111
Aug 17, 2013 at 10:22 PM
CT appears very interesting, albeit I remind the (possibly needed) functionality of not only gathering paragraphs, but together with their respective “source info” (be that in a special first paragraph of that record or elsewhere).
As for relational databases, I perfectly understand that you could affect additional attributes and such to your records, in the form “records 1024 to 1038 all share a given attribute, making them a group, and their order in that group is specified by their record numbers”, and I also understand there could be a view in which these records 1024 to 1038 are all listed together, in a single pane.
But it appears more “natural” to me to have some “paper” as a unit/record, then break up its elements when needed, then breaking up such “papers” to begin with, and then recombining their elements into “group views”, but as you say, technically, this is perfectly possible, and also, to combine a “global” “source” record (here, number 1023) with such groups, and also, with any single “content” records in numerous combinations.
But I also assume that in such an environment, any coding or other editing / “thinking” about those mini-records will be rather cumbersome, meaning you will see a combination of records 1023 to 1038 in one pane, but I fear that for any editing of one of them, you’ll have to do that in an extra pane where it’s only record 1029.
Perhaps I didn’t grasp better possibilities in what you say, perhaps you could give specifics how to work with such bits in real life there?
But I’m not into pushing AS “at any price”: As for its defunct competitor which seems to be “better” or more apt for this task, is there any chance to obtain it somewhere? (Even with discontinued development?)
From my experience, trying to obtain defunct software from ebay (even worldwide) takes years and is not successful anyway, except in very rare exceptional cases, when it comes to rare software.
Btw, there is a German bibliographic software, Citavi, that gathers bits of text into new listings, but I fear it will not do it in the way that would be needed here.
MyInfo has got a function that allows for referencing single paragraphs, but no gathering of them whatsoever. In any case, it’s a functionality that would be very helpful for many purposes in traditional 2-pane outliners, and of which the programming would be rather simple, but which is not implemented often - I don’t know Zoot too much, so I cannot say if Zoot might indeed execute this task.