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Gingko
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Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 19, 2015 at 01:12 AM
dan7000 wrote:
>but to me it seems like Gingko does force a hierarchical organization.
Yes, you’re right. I was saying it doesn’t enforce a strict mind-mapping hierarchy (where you must have and—can only have—one top level or central node), as one can have an unlimited number of ‘nodes’ (or cards) in level 1 (leftmost column) in Gingko.
>Basically
>one card in the leftmost column can be associated with multiple cards in
>the middle column, but each card in the middle column can have one and
>only one parent in the left column.
Yes, that’s true. But there are good reasons for that. That way it’s possible for the export function to assign the position of each card to a hierarchical heading structure, creating e.g. MS Word (or HTML) headings in the process.
>That’s what makes it impossible for me to use for writing.
>For early thought gathering and snippet
>organization, it’s too hard for me to stick to such a strict heirarchy.
>As an example, in fiction writing, how does one know at the very
>beginning of the process that a particular scene will be in Act I or Act
>III? Gingko makes you decide that before you even put pen to paper.
Indeed, Gingko is better suited for the type of writing that follows certain structural conventions, such academic, legal or business writing, where you know what the implicit hierarchy is from the start.
For that kind of writing, Gingko can work both as a front-end outliner (developing the initial ideas, while slotting them into place), and for the end process of writing up an outline in such a hierarchical way.
>Because of that I feel like I might
>as well use an MS Word outline.
I could still see Gingko being useful (and possibly more useful than Word outline) for the writing up of a fiction manuscript, e.g. once you’ve worked out the outline and the content, but you’re facing the constraint of having to conform to a certain word count.
At that stage Gingko would be good for moving scenes easily around, or cutting out sections and moving them provisionally or permanently to the right, and then use Gingko’s export tool to only export the content of the first few columns (the clean manuscript without the removed fragments in let’s say column 4).
Posted by steveylang
Dec 22, 2015 at 06:31 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
dan7000 wrote:
>
>>Basically
>>one card in the leftmost column can be associated with multiple cards
>in
>>the middle column, but each card in the middle column can have one and
>>only one parent in the left column.
>
>Yes, that’s true. But there are good reasons for that. That way it’s
>possible for the export function to assign the position of each card to
>a hierarchical heading structure, creating e.g. MS Word (or HTML)
>headings in the process.
What I would love to see with this card metaphor (since it’s kind of like an outline, but kind of not) is for child cards to be able to have multiple parents. I understand that wouldn’t work so well for exporting with a hierarchical structure. Maybe each card has a single parent, but could also be linked to other cards as well? (any card- parents, siblings, etc.) Or provide for labels or hashtags, with special “index” cards for each label, that would highlight all related cards.
Basically, I feel the card metaphor is very promising, but Gingko’s implementation is a bit restrictive or underdeveloped.
Posted by steveylang
Dec 22, 2015 at 06:38 PM
My mistake- tags are already available (and clickable). Very interesting- I will play around more.
I really like Workflowy, not sure if there’s room for both in my life. Not that I wouldn’t get value out of Gingko, but would just add another silo…
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 22, 2015 at 08:41 PM
steveylang wrote:
>I really like Workflowy, not sure if there’s room for both in my life.
>Not that I wouldn’t get value out of Gingko, but would just add another
>silo…
My use cases are quite different for the two.
I use WorkFlowy mainly as a task and project manager, workload planner, list maker, note-taker, and tracker of workflows, while I use Gingko for special outlining and writing tasks, especially where word count constraints are in place, or where an overall structure needs to be developed, and then followed. I tick cards off as done, while I write up the final version in WriteMonkey.
I find a Gingko ‘tree’ (one file, as it were) ideally sized for the standard 10,000-word book chapter or journal article.
Gingko is also good for developing content for presentations (one card equals one PowerPoint slide).
Posted by kjxymzy
Jan 16, 2018 at 05:41 AM
Bumping up an old thread =>
Anyone still using Gingko these day? Any interesting use cases?