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Markdown vs WSYWYG
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Posted by Chris Murtland
Sep 11, 2013 at 11:17 AM
I tested in UR, and I do see what you mean - if you have a hoisted section of the outline, whatever you expand or collapse in the hoisted section is always replicated in the main, full tree. I agree that if the tabs could become disconnected that would be useful for getting a view of different levels of the outline at the same time. (Side note - one thing I like about Workflowy in this respect is that you can just ctrl+click on anything and get that section of the outline open in a new window, so you can be viewing your outline from any number of levels at once if desired).
In regard to CT and outlining, I think you would have to expand your definition of outlining a bit to be satisfied with how CT might let you drill down into sub-levels. You can overlay multiple real outlines on your CT data, but the “drill down” effect is mostly gained by “outlining” in the content pane with bullet lists and having topic links within those lists. I believe the end effect is essentially the same as outlining (and ultimately more flexible), but the fact remains that it doesn’t necessarily feel the same as outlining. (My favorite is one-pane outlining, so even two-pane outliners like UR never really feel truly like outlining to me).
There probably won’t ever be one application that does everything and meets everyone’s needs. I keep dreaming of the total, integrated solution, but I think the ever-increasing volume and diversity of the information that needs to be managed makes that a pipe dream. And I’m not sure the best thinking tool could ever also be the best reference material tool and so on. So I’m personally trying to switch over from a “my information is perfectly organized in a rational manner” approach to a “I am accomplishing specific tasks with my information in the easiest and most practical way possible” approach; to me, that really means you need an arsenal of tools rather than just one.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 11, 2013 at 02:06 PM
Chris Murtland wrote:
>There probably won’t ever be one application that does everything and
>meets everyone’s needs. I keep dreaming of the total, integrated
>solution, but I think the ever-increasing volume and diversity of the
>information that needs to be managed makes that a pipe dream. And I’m
>not sure the best thinking tool could ever also be the best reference
>material tool and so on. So I’m personally trying to switch over from a
>“my information is perfectly organized in a rational manner” approach to
>a “I am accomplishing specific tasks with my information in the easiest
>and most practical way possible” approach; to me, that really means you
>need an arsenal of tools rather than just one.
I couldn’t agree more:
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3097
Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 11, 2013 at 03:15 PM
Chris Murtland wrote:
>that really means you
>need an arsenal of tools rather than just one.
Yes, this also rings true to me. The next logical step (to which I haven’t quite matured yet) is to learn AutohotKey or Python and write scripts that create linkages between your tools.
Also, it is very difficult to compare individual tools as alternatives: one piece of software may be a one-trick pony, while another one might be a bundle of several or even dozens of software tools.
This is one point where I would disagree with Prof. Kuehn. In a recent blog post he suggested that the fewer tools and steps one uses during writing, the better:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2013/08/personal-workflow.html
However, his examples of Scrivener and CT are tools that are such bundles of multiple software tools in one. Plus, he is a prolific user of AHK as well.
Personally I have found transferring my data and drafts around from software to software useful, as each time the argument gets more abstracted and refined. But I still haven’t published as many books as he did, and that will be the proof of the pudding :)
Posted by 22111
Sep 11, 2013 at 08:01 PM
“You can overlay multiple real outlines on your CT data, but the “drill down” effect is mostly gained by “outlining” in the content pane with bullet lists and having topic links within those lists. I believe the end effect is essentially the same as outlining (and ultimately more flexible), but the fact remains that it doesn’t necessarily feel the same as outlining. (My favorite is one-pane outlining, so even two-pane outliners like UR never really feel truly like outlining to me).”
Reading this, I’m quite “happy” (no, not really) that CT is “out” for me, for the time being, for its missing wysiwyg, since if it had this, I would perhaps very heavily complain about its inability to fake a “real” outliner. This being said, if the developer wanted to do this, he would certainly be able to realize this in a more outliner way, by option. Let’s put it this way: Most developers say “I leave this and that out because I want my software to stay simple and easy in use for most users, don’t want to frighten them off”. Now we all convene CT is so complicated any additional complication will certainly put nobody off who without would come to this software, so adding some other complications to CT would be perfectly acceptable for its potential user base, AND could even enlarge it.
“that really means you need an arsenal of tools rather than just one”
This triggered lots of comments, and in fact it’s the recurrent problem. WHERE is the problem? Two things: Most of the time, it’s not really smooth to get your data forth and back; and this would be needed because of the basic problem: What is reference material now, becomes writing material later, and vice versa, which means, so many consultants in office management and all this claim you must divide your things into “material, data, and so on” and “what you write/create”, and this distinction is simply not possible, so you need tools for both, and that’s why you then need better transition, and especially forth and back, and this interaction between tools is not smooth enough, so in the end, you would need “something better for both”: A UR with a better editor, or a Scrivener with better data repository/management - and both will not bring the respective missing parts to their game.
And so most people work with Word, Excel and so on, and endless cascades of sub-directories.
Posted by Chris Murtland
Sep 12, 2013 at 09:56 PM
22111 wrote:
>This triggered lots of comments, and in fact it’s the recurrent problem.
>WHERE is the problem? Two things: Most of the time, it’s not really
>smooth to get your data forth and back; and this would be needed because
>of the basic problem: What is reference material now, becomes writing
>material later, and vice versa, which means, so many consultants in
>office management and all this claim you must divide your things into
>“material, data, and so on” and “what you write/create”, and this
>distinction is simply not possible, so you need tools for both, and
>that’s why you then need better transition, and especially forth and
>back, and this interaction between tools is not smooth enough, so in the
>end, you would need “something better for both”: A UR with a better
>editor, or a Scrivener with better data repository/management - and both
>will not bring the respective missing parts to their game.
I have thought a lot about the transition/transformation problem, and the fact that material can morph into different things over time (reference material becomes writing material, correspondence becomes tasks, etc.).
It *seems* like something generic like a user-designed database similar to UR would be ideal for managing these types of transitions all within one software. However, I have come to believe this isn’t true, or rather, that it starts out as being true when you have a fresh, clean database, but quickly devolves into not being true.
I think the problem comes from the fact that PIMs or personal databases or tree-based info managers:
1. simply can’t reasonably handle the volume and diversity of information on an ongoing basis
2. are “spread too thin” to develop every conceivable feature you might want to have in regard to your information
3. give equal weight to each item
A little more on each item:
1. Take email. If you really wanted a single, global information store, you’d certainly want email to be part of that. Yet, the sheer volume of email tends to make it untenable (or at least tedious) to continuously do manual imports into UR or forwards to your Evernote account - if you’re trying to capture ALL of them. (Note - only Zoot comes close to being intriguing here, with its built-in mail client and RSS feed reader)
2. This is the big benefit to things like Markdown in my mind. You can have one standard, lightweight format that is easily shared among a lot of different apps that can conceivably have a lot of different and specialized features. It’s the opposite of proprietary formats, and it really ends up separating the storage format from the features/manipulation. If you want one package to do it all, well is it going to make charts and graphs? Is it going to do spreadsheet formulas? Can it resize an image, crop it, and make it black and white? Can it generate a PDF? Can it search Wikipedia? I think you see the problem.
3. A global tree of everything in my life sounds good in theory, but in reality each item has a potentially vastly different weight/importance and that also changes depending on time and context. Using different apps actually makes it easier to let some info recede into the background or limit the information you are currently working with to a manageable subset. I may want some way to search completed tasks, but do I want that cluttering up my global search results each time or do I just want a specific, separate place to go to search those? Do I need every tweet or blog entry I might be interested in later instantly at hand if I’m working on a work project? Do I need a bunch of technical work info in my face if I’m trying to write a novel? Etc.
So even if the interaction between tools isn’t smooth enough, I still think I’d rather deal with that than the issues above - which seem to multiply the longer you try to shoehorn everything into one single tool.