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Software that's enjoyable ... software that's a drudgery
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Posted by jaslar
Mar 2, 2015 at 10:52 PM
Yes, it’s true that the jump of tech writing on IBM Selectric to WordStar was quantum level. It’s also true that finding a similar jump in productivity is tougher - hence all of our diddling about with 18 notes programs, 42 outliners, and 6 mindmappers. We REMEMBER that jump, and hope for another one. But I think that’s also what’s behind the trend of new, more minimalist applications. We’re kind of inching our way back to the Unix philosophy of a few small, fast tools that link up to a workflow. It takes a lot more thought to define your own path, with so many new tools to choose from. But the payoff, I hope, is an increasingly frictionless environment. Until the next upgrade, damn them.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 3, 2015 at 07:44 AM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Anyway, my point is that when I got my first IBM PC with Wordstar as my
>word processor, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
Steve,
As usual, you’ve hit the nail on the head… But it isn’t just for word processors. Back in the 80s, as a volunteer for Amnesty International, I used to write the addresses for our network (of a few hundred) by hand or, at best, photocopying labels. A few years later in Greenpeace, with the help of Paradox database (for DOS), we streamlined the management of tens of thousands of supporters. There are many other examples of such information management ‘leveraging’.
>In my view, all
>the refinements to computers and software in total since then amount to
>a smaller upgrade in ability than that one giant leap from typewriter to
>computer, in terms of writing.
I believe there has been another quantum leap and this has had to do with collaboration; from Track Changes in Word* to joint list management in Google Apps, we can (almost seamelessly) produce totals greater than the sum of their parts. There is a price of course, and that is that our joint tools can usually be only a bit higher than the common denominator…
And ,of course, there is the ‘liberation’ from the cubicle, by being able to work from multiple locations—which itself comes at a price.
I see another leap currently underway: visualising (joint) workflow. I introduced kanbantool.com to my team of editors and they took on it within less than an hour. It has been essential in streamlining our work. In theory we could do the same with an issue tracker, but I find their non-visual approach repellent and non-conducive to action.
As one who’s tried a multitude of tools, I have the curse of dissatisfaction; none is perfect of course, and it’s easy to notice missing features because I’ve seen them elsewhere… But gradually, the tools that really help get work done will be bubblesorted to the surface. I made a reasonable budget for a new project in minimal time using MindView; if I had worked with Excel it would have been particularly error prone—but of course I had to export to Excel at the end.
The tools I choose will usually represent a good compromise between functionality and pleasure. As a business (half)owner and largely responsible for ICT, I have the luxury of not having my tools imposed in me—and the responsibility to introduce tools that others will be able to integrate in their workflow without too much fuss.
*By the way, 2013 is probably the first Word version I feel comfortable with; I find the interface much cleaner and more discrete, the changing Ribbon no longer disturbs my textual focus (I keep it minimised nevertheless) and Track Changes
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 3, 2015 at 07:48 AM
(to finish the last sentence)
...and Track Changes’ Simple Markup great for long texts.
Posted by steveylang
Mar 3, 2015 at 09:00 PM
Thank you for the Mindscope mention- it’s awesome!!
It’s like Scapple and Workflowy had a baby, and it’s right up my alley. I’ve tried a lot of mindmapping/visual note-taking software, until now my preference was still a notepad and sharp #2 pencil. But this app is simple and elegant, and the benefit of nesting is really big for me.
As simple as the app is, I only want 2 additions- 1. ability to tag items for an easily accessible ‘hot list’, and 2. import OPML.
jaslar wrote:
NEW software that I have found fun to use:
>
>- Mindscope. So cool to drag around text in a way that is NOT
>constrained to mind map rules, with “nesting” to give it added oomph.
>- Moo.do. Many of the joys of Workflowy, but with a boost of calendar
>and contact hooks.
>
>Both of these gave me that frisson of being immediately useful, of
>solving a problem I hadn’t realized I had.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 4, 2015 at 02:11 PM
The other area that desperately needs more inventive/imaginative solutions is comparative document work. Gingko is one of the most impressive concepts I’ve yet seen in this respect, but it’s time for apps of this kind to appear at desktop/tablet level. As a translator, the ability to work with multiple documents alongside each other is, of course, critical, but even when I’m just writing stuff, it’s useful to have multiple docs open and easily scrollable/searchable alongside each other.
Funnily enough, it’s what InfoRecall used to do best. But more modern, imaginative solutions are required now, based on what you might call a relational concept - documents that can be paired, tagged, placed in different windows, pinned in place, searched in place, etc.
Yes, you could argue that’s what the actual desktop is for! And that’s a fair point. But it doesn’t go far enough when you also want to draw comparisons between documents, or align similar/identical bits of them. There are some hugely powerful file comparison apps that will do this - but you can’t actually work in them.
Having said all that, DEVONthink on the Mac comes pretty close to the above. But feels more and more old-fashioned. Maybe I’ll pay the developers a visit (mwahaha!).
Yeah, go on, call me Mr. Picky…