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"personal productivity" stackexchange - inquiry about outliner with formula support
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 26, 2013 at 07:37 PM
Pierre Paul Landry wrote:
>InfoQube certainly qualifies as an outliner with tree structure and
>formula support (with both row and column equations)
Pierre, of course, that was an important omission from my part; I should stop posting before morning coffee… One more reason for having posted the reply here, so that it is well complemented.
By the way, looking at the IQ website, I was surprised to see that the product’s development started in 2003. Happy anniversary! Looking at the continuous development (latest version released just today) I am wondering why it hasn’t reached version 1 yet. I am certain that there’s a lot v1+ software out there which is not as mature as InfoQube. So I assume that there’s another reason.
The documentation has certainly grown though http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=booktree
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 27, 2013 at 03:38 PM
Alexander, documentation may have grown.
But different strokes for different folks. I continue to find the documentation daunting, and slight (as in cases where you hit a link and the result is basically a two or three line response which comes up letting you know you reached where you were headed but offering virtual no explanation.
Some excellent programs, such as Paul’s, or Zoot, probably have thousands less paid users than they could otherwise get if they put some attention on help files.
When I wrote similarly a few years ago about ConnectedText, one of OutlinerSoftware’s more erudite members, a man whom I respect and whose blog I continue to read, left in a huff. I hope this doesn’t again now.
Am just saying that what may be intuitive to developers and some of their followers is not clear to the rest of us.
Daly
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
Pierre Paul Landry wrote:
>>InfoQube certainly qualifies as an outliner with tree structure and
>>formula support (with both row and column equations)
>
>Pierre, of course, that was an important omission from my part; I should
>stop posting before morning coffee… One more reason for having posted
>the reply here, so that it is well complemented.
>
>By the way, looking at the IQ website, I was surprised to see that the
>product’s development started in 2003. Happy anniversary! Looking at the
>continuous development (latest version released just today) I am
>wondering why it hasn’t reached version 1 yet. I am certain that there’s
>a lot v1+ software out there which is not as mature as InfoQube. So I
>assume that there’s another reason.
>
>The documentation has certainly grown though
>http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=booktree
Posted by 22111
Oct 1, 2013 at 11:31 PM
“I continue to find the documentation daunting, and slight (as in cases where you hit a link and the result is basically a two or three line response which comes up letting you know you reached where you were headed but offering virtual no explanation.
Some excellent programs, such as Paul’s, or Zoot, probably have thousands less paid users than they could otherwise get if they put some attention on help files.”
You are SOOOO right!
The “best” (in fact, worst) example of them all is Ultra Recall, of course, which took that paradigm of making turning around the user to unknown height: You try to solve a problem, you get a “help” file subject. From there, you get to another piece of some line, and to a third, and the fourth will get you back to the very first one, and there is no help.
The problem is, we’re speaking of developers here who do not use their own software for practical means, they just code, and it shows.
This means, they do it all from a coder’s point of view, without ever having one thought on workflow, being organized with their software, of real users.
Then, those real users complain, and they are not heard… so they leave (Jan Rifkinson and UR being the perfect example for this).
Also, with UR, years ago, they asked for writing them a help file. Price was a free “professional” copy, which means they wanted it for free, since it can be assumed that anyone being able to write a help file for UR, has been an extensive user of their “professional” for years.
Of course, there is always that problem: So many users have so many different workflows. But then, why is this so? Because, I think, most software ain’t able to offer a real natural, swift workflow, so different users try to find escapes from this un-intuitiveness, and THAT’S what make all those different workflows.
I mean, you should have the right to have a different workflow, I’m not into forcing just one workflow upon people. But I’m very positive about the fact that there ain’t 51 possbilities, meaning good software should offer some optimized means of doing things, some variants, and “good is”, meaning many workflows people adopt are aberrant and “chosen” for the only reason of lack of smart solutions, so people try many differents things in order to get to their means, when in fact, they would be very happy with some STANDARD WAYS that would be totally optimized.
The thing is, in order to offer such “workflow functionality”, a coder either has to really listen to his users, or should be able to envision some practical use: Most developers are coders, and just coders - even the marketing side of their business is overwhelming to them, so they only make a decent living from their work if they live in the East - Eastern Europe, Russia, Far East.
These are realities, I fear. So, Daly, why asking for good help files from people who ain’t able to conceive real practical value from their software, and who for “economical reasons” ain’t able to pay for “help”, to pay for better marketing, for better real life solutions their software might deliver? (And all this lacking, business remains low, and so conceptual help, in software design, marketing and help file writing gets even farer away.)
And there is another reason to it all: If you want to conceive real good software, from a conceptual point of view, you must be an ace coder. This means, coders do code, do introduce into their software, those code bits, those routines they are technically able to code, and the problem is, in order to do better software, here and there, you’ll get code bits that are quite difficult to conceive. So you leave them out, you won’t implement that functionality…
and bingo, the possible optimized workflow of your user is broken, is unavailable.
These factors are rarely discussed, but fact is, many such coders ain’t as good as you might imagine. As a layman, you’re impressed from what you see, but they use paid (or mostly free, and that shows, too…) components, put some lines of linking code between them, and there you are.
But ace coders make tenfold their money, working for the big MS/Adobe/You’llGetThem. Or, the other way round: It’s rare that an ace coder, let alone an ace software designer, does open a software pop-n-mom shop.
One of those developers who clearly stands out of this lot, seems to be the CT developer - all the worse he rejoices in perfecting his not-so-much-an-outliner. He’d make much more business if he applied his tremendous know-how to a “real” outliner, with additional capabilities, instead of doing his perfect wiki but which, as Chris (the owner of this site) rightly says, will not make really happy people needing a 2-or-more-pane outliner; from UR people, you could never ask workflow capabilities of their software, they don’t even understand this concept.
I try to understand that smart people doing business here, in the outliners, etc. field, do their own thing, but fact is, the perfect outliner is lacking, and fact is, people who say the perfect outliner cannot exist, for people having too diverse demands, are lying to themselves.
Different demands, ok, 1-pane vs. 2-or-more-pane, but for all the rest, we all need something very similar, and our demand variants then should be easily available from the same piece of software.
Very interesting asking from Wayne, in the other thread, and imagine people like myself who need to download lots of rulings, from various sources, from links, and by refererence books, i.e. by typing them into google: The same rulings sometimes will be offered by 5 differents sites, doesn’t matter, but a function where you’d know beforehand if you have already stored that ruling, by whatever source, would be so helpful; I’m currently writing a macro for that, in the way of:
- You click upon a link, but with control-click or such, and this will not trigger the “display the link within your standard browser” to begin with, but start a macro first (problem here, to get the “real info” of that link), in order to check your system first, and if it’s contained there, display it from there, instead
- You type a “search term”, the ruling, into google, but then don’t press enter, but control-enter or such, or even better, you press F11 or such, and then a dialog will open, where you enter your search term, and a similar routine will first check your system, and if it’s not there, it will trigger the same search within your standard browser.
And so on, there are so many lacking functions today, and of course it would be possible to implement them into a real smart 2/3-pane outliner.
Developers should simply do their business, and real business would automatically come to them.
Btw, last week, I said, by Listary Pro. Well, I should have tried their free version, before. So many people are so happy with it, but I just can’t bear when it intervenes with its special pane, when I just want to navigate within the CURRENT pane, current folder of my current file manager. Whenever I need something which is not within the current pane, ok, then this might be helpful, but it certainly should not present a long list of unwanted “hits” when you just want to navigate from your “e” files of your current directory, to some file beginning with “t”, for an example. This is so much clutter, so little real help.
As said, coders, without imagination for real needs.
This being said, I certainly don’t say the Zoot coder’s just a coder. He, too, is a fine developer, but he seems to be very far into his own things.
In another very interesting thread these days, Slatibartfast says there is less and less rooms for alternative developers, besides MS software better and better integrated.
He, too, is so right. But it’s a shame it’s not otherwise.
And a final remark: Years ago, in the askSam forum, there was a tremendously helpful guy named Flo, he put enormous effort into this software, all of this for free. And now the point there: Do you think the developers of askSam did him a favor, and implemented some of the things he asked for? No, Sir, they did not.
Other one-man-show softwares often have such one-man, living help “files” in their forum, too.
So in the end, it’d be even possible for such developers to get their real good help file for free if they are unable to produce it themselves.
But they should begin to listen to their “ace customers” if I dare say, that’d be the minimum effort from their side to be asked for. That’s also why so many ace customers left UR years ago, just look into their forum and the intellectual level of discussion they often had 7, 8, 9 years ago: Most of those people have left that forum, and that application, instead of becoming “multipliers” for it.
It’s all a question of workflow, and of most coders not wanting to hear about that. That’s why the “perfect outliner” will never exist… and not because many different, smart functionality bits could not be integrated in one smart piece of software: Of course they could, and without making it “too slow”, “too complicated” and all this: Of course, you can hide very smart, very useful functionality within the depths of your menus, without bothering the simple user.
No. They simply don’t want to do it, and more often than not, they ain’t even able to do it, that’s why.
I also could say some words about “from html to pdf”. Having one standard format for all your things, that’d be a tempting idea. But then, I think choosing pdf for such means is a very bad idea. I could develop this idea, but it’s 1.17 in the morning, and most people wouldn’t hear me.
Just one line: Wanna download text? Put it into your outliner, by macro, then bold it, underline it, italicise it, color it: You’ll do your own formatting for emphasizing, most of the time, bolding will suffice, and within, underline some passages. Then, if you have a formula, or a picture, here and there, copy it by macro. If you have such elements on a regular basis, try something like WebResearch or the Australian things mentioned in the pdf thread; copying text into a good outliner will mean, no problem whatsoever with original links; it’s ridiculous to put it into a pdf where with some chance a third of your links will work; if you really need (original) pdf’s, optimize your file system instead.
You see, even importation of web pages into your outliner will cause so much trouble, so much checking to do. It’s simply not worth your effort and your time. ACCEPT the fact that within your system, you will have to administer different file formats; half of the outliner business is about avoiding this fact of life; don’t fool yourself. Immediate download, and immediate access is the point here, and certainly not “working” time spent on checking and re-checking.
Btw, since so many people ask for it, so many outliner developers spend their time on “optimizing” the web download capabilities of their respective outliner. They never ever even get near to it, web technology developing too fast. So enormous coding efforts are spent on this part of what users want, instead of educating users for them to accept plain text that then they will format in order to THEIR, SPECIFIC needs.
Information technology is about clarity, the basic prerequisite of quickest possible access of your brain to information, and to nets of information. All those beautiful colors and other fittings of net pages a totally counterproductive.
1h32.