two-pane outliner that can show more than one note at a time in the viewer/editor pane?

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Posted by Dr Andus
Oct 19, 2013 at 10:38 AM

jimspoon wrote:
> So called “single-pane” outliners
>- where a tree is integrated into the editor itself - not only allow me
>to see the content of multiple items in a single pane, which is only the
>first step - but also the ability to split/join items, promote/demote,
>and reorder items while seeing their full text.
>These abilities make so-called single-pane outliners (where “outlining”
>is actually integrated into the editor) much more useful to me than most
>“two-pane” outliners.

Yes, as long as we’re talking about outlining and writing, I also find single-pane outliners with inline notes superior.

>And yet many of the single-pane outliners seem to be lacking in the kind
>of database functionality I want; many of the two-pane “outliners” excel
>at that.

But I wonder if the advantage of the single-pane outliners gets lost once the text/outline grows too huge. I certainly find that their utility decreases for me as the text grows beyond a certain size.

Maybe one solution could be to have the large text/database rendered as dual-pane, but have 1) the ability (a bit like Scrivenings) to pull up selected “folders” or outline items and combine them in a single pane, 2) switch off the “navigator pane,” and have a single-pane outline view of the selected and combined text snippets (a bit like Scrivinings with folding text enabled with the full functionality of O4D outline mode). Actually ConnectedText’s Table of Contents + folding in the editor view sort of work like that—except that this only applies to a single document within the database.

Posted by Dr Andus
Oct 19, 2013 at 10:49 AM

Dr Andus wrote:
>Maybe one solution could be to have the large text/database rendered as
>dual-pane, but have 1) the ability (a bit like Scrivenings) to pull up
>selected “folders” or outline items and combine them in a single pane,
>2) switch off the “navigator pane,” and have a single-pane outline view
>of the selected and combined text snippets (a bit like Scrivinings with
>folding text enabled with the full functionality of O4D outline mode).

Though things could get messy when one would start hoisting and combining items etc. within such a ‘Scrivening’, creating conflicts between the original and the new hierarchy. Then the question emerges whether the ad hoc “collection” should be altogether a new document (or a virtual document independent of the original hierarchy).

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Oct 19, 2013 at 11:48 AM

This is what made Grandview so spectacular. It included every variety of method to expand and contract your document, so that you could always see just what you needed to see on the screen:

* Focus in on one piece of inline text in a dedicated word processor.
* See just the headings without the inline text.
* Open and close inline text on an item per item basis.
* Hoist to a section of the outline you needed to focus on.
* Show columns of meta data, or don’t.

If someone would actually replicate this functionality in a modern, Windows-based application, it would be the killer outliner. (I know, broken record….)

Steve Z.

Dr Andus wrote:
Dr Andus wrote:
>>Maybe one solution could be to have the large text/database rendered as
>>dual-pane, but have 1) the ability (a bit like Scrivenings) to pull up
>>selected “folders” or outline items and combine them in a single pane,
>>2) switch off the “navigator pane,” and have a single-pane outline view
>>of the selected and combined text snippets (a bit like Scrivinings with
>>folding text enabled with the full functionality of O4D outline mode).
> >Though things could get messy when one would start hoisting and
>combining items etc. within such a ‘Scrivening’, creating conflicts
>between the original and the new hierarchy. Then the question emerges
>whether the ad hoc “collection” should be altogether a new document (or
>a virtual document independent of the original hierarchy).

Posted by jimspoon
Oct 19, 2013 at 04:17 PM

Dr Andus wrote:

>But I wonder if the advantage of the single-pane outliners gets lost
>once the text/outline grows too huge. I certainly find that their
>utility decreases for me as the text grows beyond a certain size.

This is where filtering comes in. In both Ecco and Infoqube, each item can have any number of user-defined data fields attached to it. These data fields can appear as columns in a grid, and they also appear as “folders” in an explorer-like tree pane. If you double-click on a “folder”, you display a grid of all items which have that field attached to them, i.e. the field has a value for that item. So, you are only seeing a subset of all the items you have in your database. And things (we hope) are manageable.

My practice has been to enter notes into a single chronologically arranged list - so that I have thousands of notes per year. Ecco can quickly display thousands of items that match a search. Infoqube and Ultra Recall are quite slow to sort or display a grid of thousands of items. I guess the key is to refine my search so that fewer items are displayed. The underlying database structure is obviously very different. I can’t remember what Ecco is using; Infoqube is using microsoft Jet, which underlies MS Access.

Posted by 22111
Oct 19, 2013 at 10:13 PM

jimspoon wrote: “Infoqube and Ultra Recall are quite slow to sort or display a grid of thousands of items. I guess the key is to refine my search so that fewer items are displayed. The underlying database structure is obviously very different.”

I’ve complained about it elsewhere: UR does not “translate” the search functionality of its underlying database, SQLite (some other outliners do also use that since it’s free AND it’s real good, quite perfect for this task (desktop, not too much collaborative), entirely, but “shields” it from you.

And then, this is not new either, its search functionality is the only element of UR that is not rock-solid; in fact, search results can be unpredictable, which is one of the reasons I’m not so happy with it anymore, all the less so since the developer, while eager to de-bug his program any which way he can, does NOT do anything about UR’s search in spite of the reports about its problems he gets.

Now let’s see into this: If we hadn’t the tree frontends set upon those sql databases, but some classic frontend you would have for the bigger databases and which are often also available for SQLite, you could do SQL searches, instead, and we all know that here, mainly two, three factors concur to give you search speed:

First, the repartition of your data within the relational database. Of course, this is a design decision, here of the UR developer, and you cannot blame the underlying database for possible data repartition (I’m not saying you try to do this, I’m just speaking in general); also, one user needing particular searches often, is “offered” the “general” database architecture, not something adequate to his needs, as if he had set up the database himself, according to these.

Then, more or less parented to the first factor, is the maintenance of indexes, meaning, which possible info is indexed, which is not, and we recall UR does not offer any options here: Again, it’s the standard fare you’ll be served.

And third, we all know that there are often lots of different ways to to sql searches, very “dumb” ones - let’s call them “beginner style”, and then, very smart ones, that often might not be tenfold as fast, but hundredfold or even faster - or let’s say the “beginner style” can be very, very slow!

Now if you do sql searches, direct, you will “learn” from your response times, meaning if your search is too slow, you will try to find a better way to do the “same” search, and here, many web sites and advanced books on sql will be of big help (if you can justify the buying and reading).

Now back to UR. I strongly suppose its search panes (regular and “advanced”) do translate your search wishes, in the most inflexible, rigid, “stupid” way possible, into “dumbest” sql search commands, or let’s be nice and say, UR does standardize your sql searches to the core.

I’m perfectly aware that in such an environment, there are not 51 possibilities, but there would be SOME possibilities at least, but which would need to be implemented and coded, and you cannot expect this from UR.

Technically, it’s perfectly possible to predict some MORE standard uses of the database, and to have at least additional indexes built and maintained by option. Then, it’s possible to introduce some more search search panes, not just “standard” and “advanced”, but to have several “advanced styles”, for different, typical tasks, and for which the translation into sql would be quite different = optimized for the main elements of your different searches, since of course, it’s quite another task to just combine different key words, or to select/sort by some attribute, and then only be interested in key words, to give an example.

And then, it also would be perfectly possible to implement “stored searches”... but for sql searches: Have a search “line” (in fact, since we’re speaking of sql, a search field with perhaps twelve lines) for entering sql blocks, and have a pane to which you can store, and from which you can then retrieve both stored searches with theirr content, and just skeletons, or combinations of real search “terms” and just empty command parts first to be filled up and/or to be adjusted to any new search, meaning you will store some dozen such sql searches, grouped by kind/complexity, and then retrieving one will place it into the search field, where you will probably want to do adjustments (or even not, for your most standardized, recurring searches), and then a key (perhaps a double return) would trigger your “optimized” sql search, optimized if you took the effort to optimize it.

Such an approach would also eliminate the unpredictability of UR’s current search, since you can be 100 p.c. sure that these bugs don’t come from SQLite, but from UR’s “translation services”.

And again, we face the old problem that we don’t constitute enough of a “market” in order for developers doing the work, and thus we live with sub-standards that technically could be easily avoided. We just ain’t worth it.

This reminds me of MindJet: In so many years, with so much money earned, they weren’t able to introduce inter-illustration clones, which for a mind-mapping system are so necessary though, since the philosophy beind mind-mapping is certainly not to create monster maps with 5,000 items, but to discard anything not relevant in a given context to another context, but since things are interrelated to other contexts, too, this supposes clones updated in different maps.

In fact, the absence of this feature invalidates the whole concept, but without them being bothered by such considerations. I say it reminds of MindJet since some days ago, I got a mail praising the newest version, now with a better database, of a macro program that tried to update such things, from the outside, in your MindJet map collection, be it for your own use of “cartography” of your things, or for collaborative tasks. This macro program, costing several hundred dollars, is expected to be run before 9 in the morning, then again around supper, and then perhaps again in the evening, instead of next morning before work: As said, it maintains its own database in order to do all this that should be done from within MindJet’s database in real time, from the outside, “manually”, when there is a break in your work.

So this ridicule is proof that our not getting needed functionality has not too much to do with our being too small a “market”, but if we were a great many (as paying MindJet users are), the return maximization efforts of the developers/suppliers would assure we didn’t get our needed functionality there either.

Technically, it’s almost always possible, and more often than not, it would be even rather easy to code. Evernote is a good example: It has certainly got some new, state-of-the-art functionality, so they prove they are technically able to do a lot of things, and then many “basics”, also needed, have even been eliminated, instead of having been developed to a higher degree.

Anyway: My starting point was, don’t blame the database here, blame stupid frontends.

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