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A Lot of Buzz about ConnectedText, but what about Mac users?
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Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 1, 2013 at 09:18 PM
Nhaps wrote:
>I’m
>wondering if CT Preferences can choose a reference manager of choice, so
>Control +Y can be used for automatic citing
I don’t think so. You could paste in the citation code from your reference manager into a CT topic as you’re writing, and then, once you’ve exported the CT text, have the codes recognised by your reference manager add-in in whatever word processor you’re using, but it sounds like too much hassle to me.
>I am more interested in knowing whether python within CT
>could generate citation styles that can be used to format footnotes and
>bibliography in the future.
I presume it would be possible if you’re really good at Python, but again it sounds like too much trouble, if you already have a perfectly functioning reference manager. I prefer to do the referencing and formatting of bibliographies in a word processor, as the very last step, not as part of the outlining and organising.
>Although I heard CT is not for final
>polishing.
That’s right, you’d be better off using a word processor for that.
>My bottleneck is the lack of outline capability in Scrivener plus the
>lack of ease for wiki/link creation throughout the document.
>The concept of an outline “within” an outline is a killer feature, with
>the option to link part of a second outline to the project outline (or
>in its entirety for that matter) references
I’m getting the impression that you’re talking about outlining both as the earlier phase of organising and analysis of material, and the final phase of writing reports out of the organised material.
Personally I use CT for the former, but not for the latter. I’d say Scrivener is more geared towards the latter, than the former. But the two could be used in conjunction (organising tool + writing tool).
I’m sceptical about using a single tool for the entire academic research process from beginning to end, as there is always some specialised tool that is better at doing certain bits of the workflow than an “all-in-one” tool.
Posted by Paul Korm
Nov 1, 2013 at 11:12 PM
Perhaps you’re fighting against Scrivener—expecting it to be one bird when it’s really another bird? There are many ways to work with Scrivener in an outliner-style hierarchy of texts—two of them that might help you are the ability for texts to be children of texts in a nested manner, and “Scrivenings” mode. Section 6.4 of the Manual explains Scrivenings. There is a vibrant and very thoughtful community at the Scrivener forum who can help you sort through using Scrivener a way that meets your needs.
Nhaps wrote
> My bottleneck is the lack of outline capability in Scrivener plus the lack of ease for wiki/link creation throughout the document. The outliner is geared for only first and second levels, including a synopsis. It does not go deep enough for paragraph levels, for example. Internal links work only for documents.
> But the lack of integration is still there because the outliner is enslaved to the binder, and these work only at the surface of the project.
Posted by Nhaps
Nov 1, 2013 at 11:35 PM
Thanks for clarifying things so well. Best!
Posted by Nhaps
Nov 1, 2013 at 11:58 PM
Thanks very much, Steve Z. That is helpful
Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 2, 2013 at 03:57 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
>I’m getting the impression that you’re talking about outlining both as
>the earlier phase of organising and analysis of material, and the final
>phase of writing reports out of the organised material.
>
>Personally I use CT for the former, but not for the latter. I’d say
>Scrivener is more geared towards the latter, than the former. But the
>two could be used in conjunction (organising tool + writing tool).
Actually, in light of the new floating windows of v. 6, CT might offer some advantages in certain areas even in the writing process over Scrivener, especially if used with two monitors. E.g. you could view the outline structure of a document you are writing in the Table of Contents (TOC) pane on the left. Now sections can be moved around within the TOC.
You could write in the middle pane, have the Outline pane on the right with an overall (master) outline for the entire book or thesis or whatever, with links to other documents or notes.
And then you can still view an unlimited no. of notes in floating windows positioned anywhere across the screen. Not to mention that the TOC and the Outliner can also be floating.
At the moment I use Outline 4D and Gingko for actual writing, and CT as the notes database, but I might test the above model to see how it compares to O4D’s single-pane writing and Gingko’s writing-in-columns experience…